Link to Part 1

Here's the second part of the first session. I've linked the first post in case anyone reading this didn't see. I won't be reposting any information in this one, so go on back to part one if you're starting here. I figured it was time to get this done since we just had session 2 yesterday. Apologies for the wait. As always, it's a long one so I've tucked it away behind a spoiler tag.

::: spoiler Session 1, Part 2 The team escaped the dock compound, with only Recluse taking any injury. They fled to a now abandoned part of Brooklyn, Jackson carrying the captive guard, while Vaiden guided the team to a place he called 'The Nest'. A tall, derelict apartment complex marked their destination. "What the hell is this place," Carter groaned upon viewing the wretched building. Vaiden swung up to a window on the top floor to one of the only intact windows on the building and opened it. As he let the team in he gestured around and sang, "Nature, nurture, heaven, and home." He laughed to himself, "This is The Nest! Where Mr Brute and I get all our spiderwork done, and uh this is where I live. Sometimes Mr Brute has a sleepover, too." Vaiden walked across the room to another window. This one had a small arm with a panel hanging out of it. "I've, uh, borrowed a few things to get power in here, can't do running water though." Max, The Arachnomancer, inspected one of the makeshift solar systems attached to a window. Electricity began to spark from his fingers as he cast a minor electrifying spell. Vaiden reacted sharply, "H-hey, man! These are delicate systems! You can't look at them wrong witho-" but was abruptly cut off. A small bit of energy jumped from Max's spell into the system. For the first time ever, the lights in the building stabilized as the power draw equalized. "A trivial matter, my friend," Max smiled and patted Vaiden's shoulder, "I was trained by the best!"

"Why don't you just contact Strange and have him help us locate the Brimstone heads?"

"He doesn't answer my phone calls anymore," sighed Max. Their casual conversation was interrupted by maddened yelling. "Where am I? You kidnapped me!" Their captive had awoken, blindfolded and bound to a rusting foldable chair. "For the record, I don't agree with this. Take off her blindfold and let her go," Vaiden chimed in before anyone else could answer. "And let her report us to the National Police? The time to protest this decision was at the docks," Jackson growled in reply. Without another word he tipped the woman's chair back, catching it just before she hit the ground. "Tell us what you know of the operations at the dock. We're after your bosses, not you," the gargantuan size of the man was evident in his voice alone, and she picked up that maybe he had done this before. "Who the hell do you think I am? I was working a job! Does your boss tell you everything about the company you work at?" The woman fumed, rage and desperation wrestling for control of her tone.

"Look." Vaiden squeezed in between Goliath and the woman, pulling the chair back upwards with his toe. "This isn't right, let's end this Guantanamo stuff before it starts, let her go, and-"

"We need answers," Jackson interrupted.

"She has something, I know her employer. Even a half wit could gleam something from the inside. I know I did." The mountainous man's contorted brow sneered down at the woman. "Fine," she sighed in defeat. "I picked up a name, Vincent, thats all I know. This was the only job I could get," she looked up, towards Vaiden, "you know what its like trying to live with a criminal background in this country." Vaiden shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "We've got enough here. I'll take her to a street far from here. When I get back we'll analyze that data I got from the warehouse along with the documents you both recovered." Vaiden's tone dropped its familiar playfulness completely. He put the blind fold back on her and untied her legs from the chair, "I'm leaving your arms tied so you can't remove the blindfold. If the police found me here, it could be very bad." She made no acknowledgement at all.

Before long, the blindfold was off again, and the moon glinted in her vision once more. They were on a pothole laden street in the middle of what once was Chinatown. "I'm sorry to leave you here, but from experience, I know you can handle yourself. I'm sorry about the other guys. We may all have the same goal, but they have people they deeply care about on the line. I,-" he paused for a moment as his hand nervously rubbed the back of his masked hood, "-don't really have that." The woman's face still bore a scowl, but it had softened somewhat, "I get that," her voice was sharp, "but so does everyone else out here."

"I know, I know. Thats why we do whag we do. If you feel like we do," he handed her a folded slip of paper, "this will get you in contact with me." With a thwip of his wrist, he was slinging away before she could look back up, "Oh! And leave that Tyranodude out of it! He seemed like a twat!" The spider yelled as he swung further and further away. The woman looked back at the paper, "Fucken idiot didn't even get my name," she chuckled to herself as she placed it in her pocket.
Back at The Nest, the rest of the spiders were busy analyzing the documents they had recovered. They found an address to match with the name they were given, one that Jackson vaguely recognized from his time with the mafia. As Vaiden returned, he poured over the data he copied onto the USB with his trusty old thinkpad lovingly referred to has the SpiderPad. The data he recovered brought a complete picture of their next objective. First, some electronic documents with some physical ones helped patch together the contents of a specific shipping container. Flicker read it off the screen over Vaiden's shoulder. "Four undisclosed religious artifacts, two boxes of something called a Null Collar, various other items, and... Holy shit.. One superhuman specimen?" The young boy's mind raced, piecing together information like it is used to doing. "People disappearing off the street, the expansion of the war fronts in Europe, the event that gave you (Vaiden) and Jackson your powers? This is all connected, somehow." His team stared blankly at him for a second. Jackson slammed his fist on the table, "Hell yeah, what the kid said. What are we waiting for?" Into the night, the team took flight once more.

A lone compound outside the edge of the city stood before them. It was an eccentric house, yet the midnight air bathed it in a sinister darkness. Not a single sign of life touched the place. "I'm going in," Max placed his hands together to prepare his mind to leave his body. He shouted a chant, his teams returning muffled protests of its volume, but Max had already slipped away from his body. Over the fence he floated, the house had an impressive backyard, with great oaken double doors that guarded anyone from entering. no way this isn't protected, Max thought as he passed right through the large guardians. OK, dispute the suspicion, he pressed on into a luxurious modern interior. There was but a single light on down a hallway at the other end of the living room he was standing in. Once again, nothing impeded his astral form. The room revealed a frightening scene; a shrouded man, who could hardly be described as a mafia boss, was kneeling before a flaming figure clad in a white suit. His head was but a skull exuding flames, and his teeth were outright vampiric. "Vincent, your recklessness is beginning to outweigh your usefulness. Attacking my labs for your own gain? Now these endless security breaches? I think you have forgotten who holds the leash."

"My Lord, I-"

The mob boss never finished his sentence. The hellfire man had locked eyes with him, and as he did Vincent's own turned to cinders, transmuted to ash in a glance. He slumped to the floor, and silence fell for a few seconds. Max nervously floated near, instinct keeping him to the shadows still. The monstrous man lumbered over to a box of collar shaped objects, he seemed to count them over, and then turned to a long box perched upon a wall. Max braved himself and floated closer. He can't see me, nobody can, he reassured himself as he moved ever closer to the burning man in white. Outside, Vaiden was getting impatient. "What's taking so long? He should be in and out, his invisible and intangible basically," he began to pace as he spoke.

"Maybe he's just getting a good look around, relax," Carter said lazily, as he lay on the ground. Vaiden stopped suddenly, and looked at both his allies, "No, they had some unknown artifact shit on that container. What if its a trap?"

"Wait, Vaiden," Jackson growled.

"Fuck that. Something is wrong," he was gone with a thwip before his sentence ended. Jackson ripped behind him enraged, "What do you think you'll do? Just open the backdoor?" Vaiden put his hands on each twisted iron ring and pulled, and the doors weren't even locked. They flung open, Vaiden held on in surprise and one of the doors carried him out of the Goliath's way. The mountain of a man was stopped dead in his tracks, "It was unlocked.. Did Max-" the baritone voice was interrupted by choking sounds followed by a thud. Their spidersenses flaired, t came from the other end of the living room. Back in the room with the man in white, Max had advanced closely to the right. He peered at the pine box, one fiery hand ripped the lid clean off, while the other snapped like a viper around the neck of Max. "It would appear that we have an unexpected guest to your Ascension, Peter". The other hand rose from the box, firmly grasping a bruised and broken man in a red and blue uniform with spider motifs. Max was thrashing between the hellish grip that should not have been, before pausing in utter shock. In this moment, Goliath and Vaiden exploded through the door, while Carter phased in through the wall the door used to be attached to.

"Spider-Man!?" Vaiden and Goliath reacted immediately, pouncing in a strike formation at the demon defiling their idol. Both men were swatted aside with the effort of a child tossing a toy that had lost its interest. "Not now, gentlemen. It is blasphemous to interrupt a priest delivering blessings from the Lord," the man in white's jaw nearly unhinged. His needle fangs seemed to extend amid the horrid scene. Peter's eyes opened slightly and a weakened voice escaped from his bleeding lips, "Run."

The fangs sank into his neck, igniting the area of entry with eerie flames. They danced unnaturally across Peter's body, removing flesh and revealing bone, and flame. The same horrible, screaming flames of the Man In White. The agony of Peter's face was soon replaced with the glintless stare of an empty skull consumed by hellfire. His red and blue suit melted to black and burned red while the spider insignia warped to reveal a skull on its thorax. The Man In White chuckled, and seemed to fade from view. "You are all," Peter's voice was joined by a chorus of demonic copies and reverberations, "GUILTY!" As the chorus sang, the hellfire spider thwiped his wrist, and fiery hooked chains erupted from twisted and warped web slingers. The two spiders felt the attack before it came, Vaiden somersaulted gracefully over. Jackson, the towering brute, slapped the chain targeting him and deflected it upwards. Carter was already doing his thing, and the hellfire chains passed right through him. Then there was, Max. He was just entering the room again, "You left my body outsi-" a chained wrapped around his arm, slicing his side. Consequently, he was also pulled towards the Hell Spider.

"Peter! This isn't you, man!" The struggling form of Max appeared in his peripheral vision. He slung a web to the wall behind the Hell Spider, pulled quickly with all his might, and connected a fist to the side of the flaming skull. Goliath followed from the other side with meteoric force behind his boulder hand. The Hell Spider took both shiners with minimal reaction, but The Arachnomancer was about to tip the balance. With both web amulets he stuck webs to a high point on the corner of the room. Like a slingshot he pulled himself from the ground where the chain had pulled him and toppled the Hell Spider at his legs. The thing squeeled in anger, frustrated with the skill of his foes. Carter added insult to injury, phasing his form into the flaming skeleton. His mind focused on the individual atoms of his body, unphasing and phasing them fast enough to not be burned. He picked at the atoms of what seemed to posses Peter, hoping to find a separation between the two. Oh, no- the thought stung his mind, this thing is Spiderman. His meddling was not just for inquiry, the abrasive proding also interfered with the Hell Spider's movements. Another soul piercing scream erupted from the fiery demon and a chain quickly followed. It bolted to the ceiling, pulling the Hell Spider to his feet. During the movement he returned the favor to Max, knocking the Arachnomancer's legs from beneath him in revenge.

Another chain targeted Goliath, but the gargantuan spider was ready this time, and caught the flaming chain. It burned and bit at him, but he did not let go. Instead, he gave it a mighty tug, sending the Hell Spider tumbling towards him and into his hulking knee. Seeing this, Vaiden turned the attack into a pinch as he drop kicked the Hell Spider's back. All the demon did in return was cackle. He grabbed onto Jackson, stating right into his eyes. "YOU WILL BE PUNSIHED," The hellfire holes of eyes reached for the brown irises hiding beneath a mask. "Not today!" An icicle shot through the arms of the Hell Spider, and pinned him to the wall. Two more followed, pinning his legs. Max made a risky shot, and it seemed to pay off. Vaiden barked orders on instinct, "Max, cast that thingy you did on that weird bugcat thing you summoned at the sanctum!"

"I said not to talk about that!", the Arachnomancer's hands worked as his mouth protested. Strange sigils flickered around him with a ghastly wind. The sigils wrapped around the Hell Spider. Dagger words stabbed from the sorcerer's mouth at the creature, "Sicut déficit fumus defíciant; sicut fluit cera a fácie ígnis, sic péreant peccatóres a fácie Dei."
The spell reached its peak with a blinding emission of light. As quickly as it came it faded, leaving behind the haunting immolated cackling of the Hell Spider. "What? That should have worked. The only way that wouldn't work is if he's not..." Max trailed off.

"Possessed," Carter solemnly replied, "this isn't a Spirit of Vengeance we are dealing with. That's Spider-Man," his voice trembled with fear, and a touch of awe. "ENOUGH," the Hell Spider had enough, flames erupted around him along with a flurry of chains whipping in all directions. Metal links collapsed Flicker's legs, Arachnomancer was knocked back by a multitude of chain and flame, but Goliath caught the massive chain addressed to him, and bore only the heat of the flames with a stern grit. Vaiden suffered the most, his light frame was thrown back by the force of the flames. In mid flight a hooked chain buried itself into the left side of his abdomen, and forcefully pulled him back towards the Hell Spider. "YOUR SOULS ARE TAINTED. YOU WILL ALL BE PURGED IN HOLY FLAME," the chorus shrieked at the group as Vaiden slid to its feet. It picked him up by his neck, struggled as he might, he was too injured to break free.

This moment of opportunity is what Goliath had been waiting for. He grasped the chains hard enough to dent the paranormal metal yanked, Vaiden still in hand, the Hell Spider propelled towards Goliath. Another massive fist met a boney cheek and the tables had been turned. Recluse managed to sling to the ceiling during the action and painfully held on. The room had caught fire from the Hell Spiders powerful rebuke and the flames began to eat at the infrastructure. With their assailant vulnerable, Flicker again played with his atomic makeup by phasing, the burn from the supernatural fire burned hotter this time, but he persevered. His strange abilities locked up the Hell Spiders movements long enough for his team to take action. Max had noticed the fires, and the box of collars on the table. While Goliath had heaved the Demon Peter, Max grabbed a collar from the box. Carter made his move at the perfect moment, Max slapped the collar on the Hell Spider. He had hoped for it to mimic the effects it had on him when he was Peter Parker, instead it melted away like a tin can. Up on the ceiling, Vaiden was watching, and calculating. If this twisted Spider Man was victorious here, he could easily wreck mass destruction with impunity. Whatever Max's plan was just now, did not work, they had run out of options this time.

Vaiden swallowed the race thoughts overtaking his mind and let go of the ceiling. He twisted his leg into powerful weapon directed at the Hell Spider, delivering eight tons of force to his eye socket. The flames on the Hell Spider sputtered, "You were the one who taught me anyone could wear this mask!" Vaiden screamed, holding back tears behind his own spider mask. The flames on the Hell Spider reduced to smoke, its eye sockets staring at Vaiden. A stray tear fell from the edge of the socket before evaporating rapidly, then the smoke begin to spark again as the flames kicked back up. Vaiden clinched his fist, and delivered it to the same point he had just kicked. Cracks ran through the entire skull, and the indomitable Hell Spider collapsed to his side. The smoking skull lost its paranormal qualities and as Peter fell his flesh returned to him. Vaiden caught him before he hit the ground.

"Recluse, my name is Peter Parker," the webslinger's voice whenced with each word. "They're hunting everyone and turning them into these things. Everyone is gone or in hiding. You all have to stop them." Vaiden's heart heaved at the weight of what he'd done. "Hold on, we can get you to a hospital! Or maybe the Strange will know what to do! Just- "

"Hey," Peter cut him off, "You're wearing the mask now, Spider-Man."

His eyes closed, and he went limp. The team stood there in silence. Most of them had looked up to the man they now knew as Peter Parker. Vaiden slowly rose, with Peter in his arms. "You heard him," his voice was uncharacteristically dark. They slung out of the building, and didn't stop until they arrived in a bkur at St. Patrick's Cathedral. They left Peter inside laying in front of the altar. As they were leaving everyone but Vaiden mulled over what to do next. "We need answers, again,," Jackson growled. "We should go to the Sanctum. Strange will know what to do." Max chirped in reply.

"I thought he didn't answer your calls," Carter's keen memory couldn't resist the jab.

"He doesn't have to, I live there! Remember?" Max clapped back. The chatter was cut short, as the team approached the block containing the New York Sanctum they were greeted with disaster. Where the Sanctum once sat was an empty lot. The street and neighboring buildings featured serious burn marks. Police lined the area and treated it like a crime scene. "What happened," Max exclaimed, "I'm going to ask those cops!" He began to take off when Jackson stopped him, "Don't be ridiculous, you talk to them and you'll have the state hounds after us. Its fucking illegal to be like us. Strange was lucky he was, well, strange." Again in the span of just a few hours they were directionless. "I'm going back to the nest." It was the first thing Vaiden had said in hours. He sulked away towards the ruined encampment. Without any leads, everyone else followed. They arrived to the rooftops, still debating what to do next. As the rest of the team climbed the ruined stairwell to the nest, Vaiden sat on the rooftop. Jackson noticed, and stopped to sit next to him. The smaller spider took his mask off and just stared at it, tears falling onto the eye panels. Jackson rested his mountainous hand on Vaiden's shoulder. "I killed Peter Parker," he gripped his mask and sobbed as the sun began to rise. :::

I run a game with a steampunk airship crew, skirting the edges of the law and of solvency in a newly minted Empire in what was once a high fantasy world. They’d bounced between a few jobs and had made a few friends, but I wanted to introduce a fellow airship smuggler as a contact for later down the line. I wanted them to be memorable, friendly, but not necessarily trustworthy; and of questionable judgment - so they could fill whatever role I might need later! So I introduced them to Captain Borda, an Orcish smuggler.

The crew had been making their way generally north following another plotline, doing odd jobs along the way to help defray fuel costs. This stop marked their entry into the Badlands, where the orcs, ogres, goblins, and other less savory races were pushed during the Empire’s expansion across the continent. Johnny, the crew’s halfling Face, had heard about a quick & easy job for a transport like theirs whose crew understood discretion. The crew, familiar with how these things go, was immediately on guard - but decided to at least hear the offer. Captain Borda asked to meet them at a local tavern; everyone decided to come along (4 PCs, and Johnny the DMPC).

They arrived a few hours after dark at the Broken Banner, which turned out to be a large, busy establishment serving the locals. None of the crew are greenskins - a few are from other minority races (and get occasional flak from NPCS for it), but they all clearly didn’t belong here. After talking their way past the bouncers and checking their weapons at the door, they got a view of the main floor of the tavern - and it was packed! All the local races were represented - orcs, goblins, hobgoblins, a few ogres, even a troll were crammed in around a dozen tables and booths. A local band was playing a slow, moody piece in Orcish (we checked at this point if anyone knew the language; nobody decided they should). After a moment’s searching, and being eyeballed thoroughly in turn by some of the other patrons, Captain Borda recognized Johnny from across the room, and waved them enthusiastically to his table.

The crew made their way cautiously through the crowd to Borda’s table, on the far side away from the doors and next to an open space where the band was playing. Aside from some rough jostling that they ignored, they made it safely to the table. The captain greeted them warmly: “You’re just in time! The band just started, these guys are amazing!” He got them settled around the table, waved to the bartender to send drinks over, and started inquiring about their ship while the brooding, gravelly voiceof the singer chanted on.

After a minute or two of this, the tavern was rent by a crashing blast of sound, accompanied by what was recognizably an Orcish battle cry. On cue, most of the patrons leapt from their seats and stormed towards them!

The crew had one second to react before the first of the patrons reached them (this is in GURPS, so a combat round is one second). Johnny moved to the backline, the dragon-blooded captain moved to grab Captain Borda as a potential hostage, the dwarf engineer grabbed a chair as a makeshift club, the four-armed coleopteran (beetle-person) braced to meet the charge, and the satyr… asked to make a general Perception check.

She rolled three 1s - a critical success!

She noticed that Captain Borda was shaking, and suppressing a mirthful grin. And, since it was the strongest crit you can roll, she also realized the other customers were actually running to the open space next to them. She seized one of the arms of the coleopteran, stopping him just long enough to let the customers reach the dance floor, where they started dancing violently, joyfully pushing and shoving each other to the now raucous beat. At this point, Captain Borda burst out laughing, and answered their glares with “What? Never seen a mosh pit?!”

The players groaned, and most of them ended up joining the mosh. They even talked little Johnny into jumping in, once they noticed goblins in the crowd. They couldn’t talk the poor dwarf into joining in, though!

Once their business was concluded, the crew’s captain also spotted Borda getting quietly chewed out by the bartender. It sounded like the bartender did not share Borda's sense of humor, he caught phrases like “safety of my customers” and “dignity of our people”! Borda snuck a wink at them when he realized they were watching. The job turned out to be genuine as well - an honest misdirection of an Imperial interceptor who had been chasing Borda, for which they received a portion of the take.

This is a story from 20+ years ago, from a game system that is no longer in print and is, so far to me, impossible to find again. It was a 6mm scale WW2 game, played freeform (as opposed to hexes or squares on the board), and importantly for the story it had detailed rules for vehicles including relative weights of vehicles if they tried to push each other for a given reason. There were also concealment rules, where defending concealed units would be covered in cotton balls or moss, and then for each unit two additional fake cotton or moss balls would be put on the field, removed when the unit acted or the area was cleared by the enemy.

This was my very first time playing this game, and I was put in charge of a group of isolated American troops shortly after D-Day, holed up in a farmhouse in France as a pocket of mechanized German troops counter-attacked. The scenario was a kind of "supposed to lose" one where my troops were meant to put up the best fight possible, and victory relied on surviving a certain number of turns, where reinforcements would theoretically show up to save me, and then I'd be scored on how many of my troops survived. My forces consisted of a single Sherman tank, a platoon of infantry, a few bazooka teams, and a mortar team.

The Germans had a mechanized force consisting of armored scout cars, half-tracks full of a platoon of troops, and 3 tanks of various models (I don't remember the details of the enemy tank forces, but they were sizable and would clearly overwhelm my single Sherman in a head to head fight).

The map looked roughly like the below picture. Americans deploying in and around the farmhouse, Germans coming in from off the board onto the main road.

As the Americans, I was given the first turn. Traditionally this is when the Americans in this scenario would order overwatch for fields of fire, and otherwise prepare to receive the first wave of German scout cars and halftracks. Having looked over the field and the rules, I took note of the rarely used rules regarding vehicle weight interactions.

I rushed my Sherman tank down the main road, opted not to fire any guns and instead spent all of the action on movement in order to Tokyo Drift it sideways.

The German player scoffing at my apparently reckless newbie aggression deployed his first scout car and tank behind it. He was able to angle the two vehicles so that the tank had a line of sight to the Sherman. It fired, instantly destroying it.

As I had planned. He went to move forward with the scout car and I reminded him of the relative weight rules. A tank would be capable of, slowly, pushing the hulk of the Sherman out of the way, but a scout car simply was not. The German tank behind the scout car didn't have enough room on the road to maneuver around. The entire mechanized column was was stuck in place on turn 1. All of the tanks and scout cars rendered useless.

From then on, he brought in halftracks to the small amount of available deployment area, unloaded the infantry, and was forced to move them forward with no vehicle support against prepared American defensive positions. All the while my mortar team hammered the traffic jam, and eventually bazooka teams moved up to take potshots at the trapped vehicles.

My opponent was supremely frustrated and declared I was "not playing within the spirit of the rules" and that "realistically this would never happen!"

Due to this being my first post here I'll provide a little background about the game, then the setting, and then I'll get into the story.

Recently, I played a game of the Marvel Multiverse TTRPG. I had extreme counts at first, but my cousin insisted and showed me the rulebook. The dice system was sort of weird, 'D616' means you roll 3 dice, one is a 'Marvel dice' and the 1 on it is just another 6 unless you roll all 1s. Other than this, the rules are rather straightforward and tabletop players anywhere could probably pick them up over one reading or a short video. All in all, its not the most balanced but with some good friends it is extremely fun.

Now for some background;

::: spoiler Setting
The year is 2028, after a successful election democracy has been usurped in the USA. Reformed in the fires, the military branch of the US government resurfaces as the First American Christian Forces. This new army was equipped with fanaticism and loyalty as it furiously burst from American shores. Within a few short years its global reach morphed into an iron fist, and its sights focused on the few remaining alliances. With such unprecedented expansion and supremacy, something was happening deep behind the public eye. :::

::: spoiler Characters
Vaiden Strider, Codename: Recluse, spider power set, homeless petty thief but wants to help people. OP's character

Jackson Brute, Codename: Goliath, ex-mafia, strong but not too bright, loves his grandma, character of friend "Sly'

The Arachnomancer, sorcerer also with spider powers (totem), Doctor Strange always ignores his phone calls, character of friend 'Nate'

Carter Montgomery, Codename: Flicker, phase\teleport power sets, 16 year old "genius", character of friend 'J'

Narrator (DM) is my brother, we'll just call him DM.
:::

little more info
Mayor of New York owns a publicly funded private company called Adrenalex. Publicly their mission is to create better healthcare medicines for Americans. Privately they are part of the True Patriot Program whose goal is to create super soldiers for the First American Christian Forces. They usually abduct homeless and criminals off the street for experimental subjects. Most of these subjects die gruesome deaths, some survive albeit deformed, and very few are miraculously shaped into the weapons the government is looking for.

Vaiden was one of these targets. Perfect for disappearing. I'll post his back story in the comments so it doesnt break up the post. Events in the back story subsequently lead to Vaiden being bitten (yay spider verse canon moments) to which Spiderman inspires him to use his newfound abilities for good. He had two years to learn the ropes before meeting Jackson, whose similar powers lead to them teaming up.

I had originally planned to share the entire first session but it will now be broken up into two parts. Now buckle up or jettison out, this will be a long one.

::: spoiler Session 1, Part 1
The first session begins with Vaiden and Jackson on the hunt for Brimstone Mafia members. They've become brazen recently, and the police ignore them due to their strength and the way they mostly damage poor communities. The team was working on narrowing down the location of a shipment dock used by the Brimstone Mafia when they received a sudden message from the New York Sanctum. Having never been there they were confused, until the message revealed an undisclosed item was stolen from the Sanctum. Strange had tracked it to a shipping dock in Eastern New York, and was sending a sorcerer "who fits well with your team" to meet them at the dock. They arrive only to be met with what Vaiden described a "knockoff strange in a party city spiderman mask" and to the spiders surprise, a young lad with enigmatic powers. Without many options the four agreed to work together to bust this crime ring.

Three goals were set; find the destinations these shipping containers were meant for, search the containers for the stolen sanctum relic, and uncover the head of the operation. With these goals in mind the team split up according to a plan. Flicker will search a ship currently resting in the dock, The Arachnomancer will use his astral form to search the shipping containers, and the two spiders will sneak into the warehouse to gleam what info they could from the systems there. An imperfect, but solid plan. Or so we thought.

As soon as it is set into motion the Arachnomancer thinks it would be a better idea to follow the three guards patrolling the dock and eavesdrop on them. While they do hold continuous casual conversation, the only thing picked up here was that the guards were just hired goons, and they seemed to have qualities of superhumans. But this did not discourage the Arachnomancer, he stuck to them like molasses and forgot his main objective.

Over on Flicker's side of things, he was having trouble entering the boat. He didn't want to alert anyone, but could not decide the best way to hide. After teleporting onto the top of the boat, he was able to peek inside and see a restroom he could quickly phase into from above. But, he didn't check the restroom before phasing all the way in, and landed right in front of a scared worker on the toilet. Now would have been a good time to dip, or maybe phase into a lower deck to hide. Instead, Carter decides he will simply phase into the wall in front of him. Which, to his misfortune, lead into a break room. This break room had 3 occupants enjoying their mafia gifted lunches. Carter can't turn invisible, just phase. Everyone in the break room draws their holstered weapons as they watch a teenager walk straight through a wall into their break room. Carter let's out a meek "Hi" before turning to phase through another wall.

At this point, the flustered bathroom goer has come out and alerted his superiors. Alarms begin to blare, and the teenager has very limited time to find what he is looking for. His pivot saved him as he phased through another wall, and this time ended up phasing inside of a mafia personnel in the hallway. The personnel is panicking as someone is going through their own body, and Carter is just trying to get to the door on the other side of them. His blind leaps finally pay off, and he finds himself in the captains quarters with shipping manifests opened on the desk.

Now, let's go back in time just a few minutes, before Carter startled an entire ship of mafia while apparently trying to be sneaky. The Spiders are perched right outside of the warehouse on the dock. They believe their teammates are performing competently. Eyeing the outside, they spot a wall with bad camera coverage and scale it to reach the roof. Atop the roof, there are multiple skylights to peer through. Vaiden recounted the items being packaged, drugs, weapons, contraband, the usual. But in each shipment, strange collar-like devices were packaged. "Sometimes, I wish I was a photographer or a journalist. I could take pictures of this shit and document it." Vaiden chuckled before waving his hand for Jackson to follow him. They made their way over to another skylight. Under this one, storage racks were stocked full of various sized crates. "Thats a lot of product," Jackson remarked. As he was admiring the work, he ducked a little, and noticed the managerial offices at the north end of the warehouse. "Good fucken lookin', my guy!" Vaiden exclaimed ad he hurried across the roof.

The Recluse leaned over the edge of the tall building. At the bottom corner, he could see a stair and ramp that lead to large double doors. He shook his head in dissatisfaction and peered over the other side of the corner. There was a single door with a small set of stairs leading to it. "I bet thats the big dog entrance right there," and without warning he crawled down the side of the building. Jackson, having worked with Vaiden enough, was short to follow. A tiny rectangular window was featured in the center of the door, which revealed a shred of office space and two occupants. "Its locked," trailed Vaiden in a disappointed tone. His accomplice simply moved the spider back with his massive hand. Mr Brute took a second to assess the room. Raised his left hand in a count down, and did his best version of a controlled destruction on the door. With lightning reactions, the spiders followed the door off its hinges and came in slinging. Vaiden's webs grabbed the far wall and flung him over the occupant furthest from them. As he cut through the air above the office worker, he caccooned them in webbing. Unfortunately for the other man, Jackson dealt with him. Mr Brute has rather unusually sized webslingers. They fit on his tree trunk wrists as gauntlets would, and the webs they emit are much larger than average. The office man sat in his chair was flung head over heel with extreme force as Goliath's webs connected to his face. He was instantly rendered unconscious at contact.

The spiders didn't waste a second of their newfound reign. Jackson claimed a door that appeared to lead to the rest of the employee facilities, while Vaiden found his mark in the executive office. It was small, for an executive office, but the air of importance still filled the room. He sat at the desk and woke the computer, which promptly asked for a password. His eyes scanned for a sticky note, a piece of paper, anything that could have a password written on it. He found nothing. Tapping his fingers to fight the desperation, his thoughts raced. He looked down at the keyboard and flipped it over, under it, written in sharpie, was a string of mixed numbers and characters. The Recluse laughed to himself as the string granted him entry. But it was cut short as he viewed the most horrendously crowded desktop he had ever seen. Fuck that, he thought, and plugged in a thumb drive. Instead of digging through it under duress, he dropped the entire desktop onto his thumb drive. Meanwhile, Jackson had grown bored of watching the empty employee hall and decided to sneak around the wider builder. He found himself in a document storage room at the end of the hall he was watching. As he was pouring over filing cabinets to find any useful information on the facility, the door at the factory facing end of the room began to creep open.

As soon as the employee came through the door Goliath's palm gripped her head like a baseball. He pulled her into the room and pinned her to a corner on the ceiling with his webslingers. Eventually someone will find these people, he thought to himself. As soon as the thought finished, he found an inventory sheet of the wares that passed through the facility this quarter. Just as a smile crept across his face, alarms sounded all over the entire property. Spider-sense screaming, Jackson flew to the room he last saw his partner in. Vaiden was already there, "What did you do!?", he yelled.

"What did you do!?" replied Jackson.

Another tingle shot through their brains, directing them towards the docks. The men nodded at each other, and retreated back the way they came. It is here we return to the Arachnomancer, who has spent this entire time still following the patrol unit in his astral form. He has learned nothing, he has ignored his objective, he realizes neither of these things. The only thing that broke him from his self assigned task were the dazzling sounds of alarm sirens erupting across the property. Startled, he decided it best to return to his body. His teammates greeted him along with the physical realm. The spiders shared what they had found, but the other half of the team was shy coming about. "So, both guys who can just move through shit fucked up?" Before the crescendo of retorts had time to build the spider-sense gripped three quarters of the team's minds. A presence had just launched itself fifteen feet in the air, rattling the web of senses ferociously. "Four targets! Rail six, container four!"

The voice rang tall in midair, alerting the other two pieces in his unit. In the backdrop of night he was nearly undetectable, only coming into vision as his reentry into the floodlights bathed him. He landed behind a derailed shipping container, and safe from the heros' line of sight he launched it at them. It flew with the grave of weightlessness, betraying the immense weight behind it. Flicker phased his body in preparation, The Arachnomancer pulled himself to safety with his web amulets, but Recluse and Goliath stood firm. The container dropped ever closer, without so much as a drop of fear. Goliath flexed, and ripped the container from the air effortlessly. A primal roar reverberated from his lungs and the container bolted from his hands at twice the speed it had before. The moment Goliath's palms left the container, Recluse clung to it. As it twirled its way back to the sender, the spiders revealed their hand. Recluse slung a net of webbing, and dismounted the container with a graceful somersault. The guard was entrapped in the web net, and the shipping container came down to meet him. "How dare you make a fool of Tyranoskull!" The anger seeped from the webbed netting. The guard, now known as Tyranoskull, was so massive the storage container rolled off of his trapped body. Without missing a beat, Recluse fired another web net, targeting one if the other remaining guards. He was pinned without a fight. "You can keep this up and end up like your friends," Vaiden's wisecracking was cut off. The last remaining guard threw her helmet to the floor, eyes beaming red. Her muscles contracted and that same burning red energy moved from her eyes to her legs, catapulting her higher than Tyranoskull had jumped earlier. She reappeared above Recluse, her knee dropping down on his back with unimaginable force. The container they were on cratered, at its epicenter Recluse laid limp with the powerful woman standing over him.

Rage enveloped Goliath, and the Arachnomancer saw an opportunity. A 2 foot wide right hook was barreling towards the woman's face not a moment later, at the same time an icey surprise brewed behind the woman. Jackson's fist connected to the woman's face, if she weren't a mutant its likely it would have been liberated from her shoulders. The strike knocked the woman prone, and before the stars left her eyes, an eighty pound block of ice collided with her stomach before becoming ephimeral once more. Defeated, the woman mimicked Vaiden's defeat. Jackson lifted the smaller spider to his feet, who rose at a shakey and unsteady pace. Recluse attempted to protest, but Jackson packed the woman into his webbing, intent on interrogation. The team fled the scene before the other two guards could break from their captivity.

Next stop, The Nest
:::

This is one I've posted in a comment on Lemmy before. Originally in this thread.

But it got a lot of upvotes and it's apropos to this community so without further ado:

I remember something my first DM did.

Player: Ok. I'll open the door.

DM: You're turning the doorknob?

Player: Wait. Never mind. I'll search first.

DM: Too late. Which direction do you turn the doorknob?

Player: Sweating. Um... clockwise?

DM: And which hand do you turn the doorknob with?

Player: Ri-... Left.

DM: And do you push or pull the door?

Player: Push...

DM: The door swings open.

The entire table was dead silent for a full 30 seconds. Nothing ever happened. Or if it did, we never made the connection to the door.

That DM was a joker. Lol.

Yaaaaaaaaaaas! I'm excited for this community to exist on Lemmy.

I'll be happy to kick it off with a nautical campaign mini-dungeon concept from a PF1e campaign I DM'd many moons ago.

PCs found a map with an "X" on it. And you all know what an "X" means. It also had a password printed on it. They didn't yet have a ship, so they rented a ship to get to the "X". It was in a fjord with huge, tall straight-vertical cliffs around it.

They spoke the password and the cliff face opened into a massive 50-ft wide, 100-ft tall doorway.

The whole dungeon from enterence to the end was the same width and height as the doorway but ascending the whole way with a trench running down the middle of the floor. Old half-rotten barriers with doors divided rooms from each other. The creatures there were mostly slimes/oozes/jellies.

The final door had a puzzle to it with keys they'd picked up on the way.

The final room held an ancient, legendary schooner in dry dock. They boarded and the ship itself came to life, attacking them with animated ropes.

After the fight went on for a bit, the ship recognized the fighting style of the pirate class PC. Turns out he was a reincarnation of an ancient legendary pirate. The very ancient legendary pirate who used to captain this ship. The ship accepted him as captain.

The next trick was to get the ship out of the dry dock. It was then that they noticed the ropes, pulleys, and trap doors high up all along all the walls of this room.

The party pulled ropes and the trap doors opened, unleashing a torrent of water washing the ship down the trench, crashing through all the wooden barriers as it went. (This ship had magically augmented ramming capabilities.)

With great speed, it flew out of the cliff face, crashing straight through the ship they'd rented, cleaving it neatly in two. And now they had themselves a magical ship of their own for further nautical adventures. Though the folks they rented the other ship from were none too pleased when they didn't get their ship back.