We Will NOT Play DnD

Investigation takes time, but business works on a schedule of quarterly reports. Lawry understands this better than anyone, and though the team itself might have liked to do some genuine police work for once, good business always supercedes good quality.

Evil works on a slope. At the very top are the people making small concessions in the hope things will turn out for the greater good. At the bottom of that slope, it would turn out, are men like Captain Guei.

It turns out there are a few confounds present aboard Captain Guei's ship aside from Captain Guei and his crew, and this means that the party has to figure out what to do with them. However, there are easy ways, and there are ethical ways.

Being super and special doesn't necessarily mean having more power. Sure, Superman is immune to bullets, which makes him a safe bet to walk directly into a line of fire, but that'd make him more valuable as a tank than anything. What makes a person truly special is the ability to do insane things, like hiding in a box for two weeks. Not only can nobody else do it, but most people would never have the discipline to try.

The party needs to board a boat and survive on it for two weeks. That means planning ahead - though in this case, not about the boat, but about those plans not related at all to the boat. Or possibly, those things not even necessarily grounded in reality.

How does one catch a turtle? It's actually a really good question! Turtles are patient themselves, and surprisingly good at hiding, since waiting and hiding are really the only two hobbies any turtle has. One possible way to do it by using a triumvirate of fantastical super powers.

The modern world has a modern way of doing villainy. It's not crime if you do it through crowdsourcing in an app, for example. That's just innovative technology. And if investors benefit, then it's especially not crime - that's just good business. There are a lot of things that seem like villainy which, if you ask a business, constitutes nothing of the sort.

Super villains lose all the time, but it seems like none of them ever fully admit defeat. This can be a bit of a strength, but when it gets wrapped up in some futile or stupid like trying to open a stuck jar lid, or achieving and unlikely bargain, then all resources will go to it only until, suddenly, the objective is destroyed for the villain's ego.

The heat is rising everywhere at once, and Kimon now has to juggle multiple fires. The good news for him is that a man with super kinesthetic senses can juggle quite a few balls in the air. Without tipping, he's got to balance Mercury, Phil, and Lawry all against each other, without losing the Green Man to the fray.

It's rare that two people at odds with one another can actually "change minds", exactly. Persuasive arguments usually involve convincing one side that they can get what they already want or already believe by adopting a different stance. When two sides can't achieve their goals by changing stance, the impasse is insurmountable.

Once someone in law enforcement goes crooked, there are quite a few ways to really bend the rules and more harm than good. Entrapment is a very good example, and Kimon intends to play a complex game here with multiple snares, except there's a snare waiting for him as well.

A successful venture in the world of business monopolies and a success in the practical world everyone else lives in are not always totally aligned, but if the business world smells blood, they have their own rules. That's why no matter what Elvis finds in the evidence they seize, it has to somehow be evidence of a business success.

When people have super strength and can move at superhuman speeds, usually the one to act first and with the most comprehensive knowledge beforehand will be the victor. Losses stem from people having powers you know about, or couldn't prepare for. In a comic, this means the writers ultimately decide who wins, because they invent new powers out of nowhere. In a roleplaying, it's surprisingly more fair, because the GM and the players have to write down all the facts ahead of time.

Playing both sides as a double agent requires knowing when to attack, and when to give up just the right amount of information. If the enemy goes down at every location you touch, they'll get wise to you. Likewise, if you know too much, that could tip your hand as well. One trick is to act, or naturally be, just a little dumb, all of the time.

To be a villain, you have to be a little insane. The exact quantity and depth of the insanity varies, but if you aren't willing to put on a cape and scream about ruing the day, you really aren't going to live up to anyone's expectations.

Though we elevate the warriors and sing about the battles, behind every great action is a matter of logistics. Feeding your organization, housing it, and tending to its morale are all key to actually winning, because every battle is won before it even begins. Even our super heroes need a place to do their daily paperwork, and Lawry is on the case to provide that location.

The exact point at which something becomes "evil" or "villainous" is quite hard to define. There's generally a feeling, however. It's the point at which an otherwise innocent person no longer feels safe, the point at which a line is crossed and trust is no longer possible. And that line is crossed in many ways, from many angles - from the sides, diagonally, top, left, bottom, you name it. Every line is a little different.

Sometimes a meeting could have been an e-mail, but some meetings make so much sense you can't complain about them. If your office building got attacked by a criminal organization and thus no longer existed, for example, it'd be a good time to have a big all-hands meeting.

Running an organization requires putting out a lot of fires, and a criminal organization still takes leadership. The problem is, a criminal organization is perpetrating outright felonies rather than the kinds of white collar crimes that get ignored or pardoned from a regular corporation. That means that dealing with problems has potentially much more frightening answers, and in a world where telepaths exist, it means an extra helping of paranoia.

In the midst of Freeze Frame's incompetence, it's sometimes easy to forget that he was hired on to Unstoppable Industries for a reason, and that he's actually capable of the job he's really there for. It's also easy, in the case of the aggressor, to forget that history often doesn't look as generously at the party who threw the first punch. Unstoppable Industries has been struck, but now the retaliation carries the full force of Heaven.

It's amazing what uncertainty at the helm can do to slow down anything, especially in an emergency situation. Time is of the essence to save Flux's mom, but if they make a mistake in the process, it naturally reflects poorly on the whole company. This isn't just about an individual, it's about an institution.

Being a super villain is really all about the persona. You can be a complex person, but if at any time there's an opportunity to really stick to something, you've got to really stick to it, or else how can you be separate from the average Joe? When you're good at disguises and dressing up as other people, then, it makes sense to never, ever break character, even if it makes your plan at least five times as insane.

Normally no criminal organization would want to blow up a tower full of super heroes, so the idea of getting inside a gang by doing such a thing would be isane and something only plotted by the wildly ideological. However, thankfully for Kimon, many super villains are the types of minds to blow up the earth because humanity wasn't ready to accept male pattern baldness, so coming forward with an insane, ideological proposal is just par for the course.

If Kimon is going to attack Unstoppable HQ, it's going to require a distraction of some sort, but it'd be a wasted opportunity to send a message if the distraction were just a cat up a tree or some minor speedbump to the life of the city. No, this distraction is going to require a bit of classical, super villainous pinache. Of course, you really have to go through the trouble to set it up if you want it.

All the players are now waiting on paperwork and schemes, and it so happens the business end of the things gets done first. McDonnel arrives at Unstoppable Industries to finalize the details on COG and to hand him over to his new owners.

As it's become clear that the members of Unstoppable Industries can no longer trust one another, secret plots are now emerging to gain control of and otherwise destroy one another. Neither party can strike openly, and neither party can end the standoff with a clean stroke.

With the ground falling out from beneath Paul's feet at Unstoppable Industries, he needs to start building up his own system that he has control over. For that, he needs people, and people he can trust whether by debt or circumstance. One man might exist in the recently laid off Gavin Blevins.

The future is coming, and everyone has to get ready because it can't be stopped. It doesn't matter what it means anymore, or who it's good for. The future is coming. This is a promise many companies make these days, and Kelvin McDonnel's companies are naturally no exception. The future is COG, and whether New Jerseydelphia wants it or not, if Unstoppable Industries doesn't accept it, someone will. The future can only be accepted.

In spite of a clear betrayal, the information Unstoppable Industries has on the criminal world and what law enforcement is doing about it is simply too juicy for Kimon to let go of if he plans to carry on in nefarious activities. To get back in the company is going to take a bit of cleverness. Perhaps even an idea so stupid it's actually genius.

Kimon makes the choice to get back in contact with Unstoppable Industries, but first by calling Flux as a means of feeling out his reaction. Considering that the company had just finished faking Kimon living, it comes as quite a shock to realize Kimon is alive. Of course, everyone was duplicitous in this arrangement, but not everyone is the bad guy.

The crew goes on "The Show That Airs At Night" to talk to Denny Bluthers about recent events, bringing along with them a fake Kimon who sounds convincingly like the real one with maybe only just a little less hard experience. Meanwhile, Kimon watches and passes judgement on the whole performance.

It's now Freeze Frame and Flux in the spotlight without any help from Kimon. In spite of however they may have felt about Kimon, he had a way of driving things forward and pushing major events to the next step. Now the group must move at Freeze Frame's pace, on Freeze Frame's terms, and there's something a little more... incentive-based when he has complete control.

Overconfidence is an insidious killer. If you assume your enemies can't ever overcome your position, you might be proven dramatically wrong, especially if you've left them to cultivate their power for too long. Frankly, this seems especially true when it comes to super villains, who are capable of producing magical weapons with surprisingly few resources.

The pieces have fallen into place and Kimon is finally getting what he wants. Unstoppable Industries is one again on the case of Mercury, and this time taking it quite seriously for perhaps all the wrong reasons. Or all the right ones, depending on who you are and who you know.

Kelvin is now in Kimon's hands, and the plan has a certain appearance of reaching its conclusion, but the truth is that an act like this doesn't really have an ending as long as the perpetrator is still alive. It's a case that can go cold, but that's the best case scenario for something so brazen.

There's nothing like a well-executed plan! It helps a lot towards success when an idea is so audacious you'd have to be an idiot to try, because nobody thinks you'd be dumb enough to do it. It paradoxically leaves a lot of clever little holes in everyone's oversight.

There's a saying that if you know yourself and know your enemy, you will never know defeat. With all the pieces in place and nothing left to chance, Kimon and his crew now knows the full layout of McDonnel's mansion, how many guards there are, and will be able to track those guards in real time using their own cameras. The place won't know what hit it!

As Kimon gets all his ducks in a row and gets ready to carry out his big crime, back in the real world, Elvis and Lawry are getting kind of antsy as passive bystanders to an interesting story. Mayson helps mediate a compromise, and now Kimon's efforts will wind up seeing a little extra help.

If it were easy to rob a man with bottomless resources to steal, it'd happen all the time! Even with superpowers, it's not something you just do overnight. It's going to take at least two nights, and it'll be stopped at the last second by a superhero, usually.

Freeze Frame scores a huge victory for the team by getting lifetime access to a box suite at the local baseball stadium! It may not be fighting crime, but it's something the company needs, and the bottom line is what's important. However, it's not quite as important to everyone.

When a guy needs help, the only sensible thing is to ask for it. Not from the people who are creating the problems, though. Clearly the correct answer is to outsource to a bunch of unvetted amateurs who are eager, but who have never done this sort of work before.

You can't tell a man like Kimon that he can't go do something if it's important to him. He'll find a way, or do it in secret, and is good at that. You also can't really replace exactly what Kimon can do, though Freeze Frame might try by inviting the oddball couple that is Lightshow and Terry to the city.

Worse than being talked about is not being talked about, but when it comes to bad news, you can't always get away from it. What you can do, however, is change which bad news people are talking about. It's usually not good if there are multiple negative things to talk about, but it gives options!

There is a simple rule in any conflict-related role: there is no safe way to apply force. Any act of violence can have unintended consequences, or be made too rashly. Just shoving a person can result in an accident. So what does one do when people have super powers? What's an ethical way to stop a man who can fly? Who can read minds? Who can jump between moving vehicles and take control of them in the process? A wacky world leads to some wacky police hypotheticals.

Interrogation is an unusual art, and it's not something that's easily done in a vacuum. It requires already knowing some answers, being careful not to give away what you do and do not know, and giving the subject enough room to say things you wanted to hear without them knowing what you wanted to hear. And in the case of police work, when there's not a lawyer present, a bit of trickery and flimflam is on the table.

In many events that deal with the law, self-incrimination can be a leading cause for arrest. For example, it's not rare for someone to discus how much they've had to drink during a sobriety test. And while you don't have to speak to the police or let them in the house if they don't have a warrant, certainly those rules change if you do something flagrantly illegal as a reaction to a knock at your door.

The real depth of a super power is determined by the creativity and the wit behind it. No superman is all that difficult to overcome if he always does the same predictable things and has no new ideas. Paul and Lawry are certainly men of their own ideas, however, and the two split up to pursue completely separate goals.

Any kind of breaking-and-entering, even if it's technically legal, is going to be fraught with perils. It's something that requires being in and out with all the sneakiness of the Grinch on Christmas, and when a person gets caught, it takes quick thinking and buttery lies. Super powers also help quite a lot.

If you can run faster than a speeding bullet, then you can bet society is going to insist that you follow a lot of rules about when and where you can run. Crime-fighting super heroes have to get warrants and talk to lawyers, or else the whole system would be a chaotic mess of autocratic heroes - and look, society has spent a lot of time trying that. It works sometimes, but not always, and when it doesn't work it can really not work!

You can't just wait for crime to happen and then go punch it down. If any crime of that caliber happened off, no city would survive. Instead, there's a lot of concern about budget, the amount of work being done, and who's doing it.