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Issue #0

A Game by Sage LaTorra with Art by Dennis Culver and

Doc Shaner
Thanks to Sarah, for putting up with all the comics, and
the Prost Crew, for figuring it all out.
The text of this book is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Introduction
Welcome, loyal readers, to Powers for Good Issue 0: Dr.
Fission vs. the World! This roleplaying game holds the
promise of unlimited adventure as you take on the roles
of heroes and villains with powers far beyond those of
mortal men.
This being your introduction to the superheroic world
of Powers for Good we’ll keep things simple. Issue 0
focuses on one team of heroes, one villainous plot, and
just the rules you need to play. The rest is yours, as are
these rules—you can do whatever you want with them
(including selling your own adventures) so long as you
give attribution.
But enough about the future, fan of the fantastic! Let’s
get you acquainted with Powers for Good so you can set
out on your first adventure.

Getting Ready to Play

Powers for Good is a game. In this strange breed of game
you play with a few other people by talking, describing,
and using these rules.
One person will be the Gamemaster (GM for short),
everyone else is a player. Each player will have one
superhero who they play—they’ll be responsible for
what their character says, thinks, and does. The GM
has domain over the other vast spaces of the world: the
villains, bystanders, and the physical space itself.
To play you’ll need to gather a few friends, 2–4 being
best, as well as some basic materials: paper, pencils, and
dice. Blank paper works fine, but you’ll be better off with
the character sheets that came along with this book.
Powers for Good uses a strange bestiary of dice. You’ll
need at least one four-, six-, eight-, ten-, and twelve-
sided dice, but more is better. When referring to dice we
use the notation dX to mean a dice with X sides.

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Recommended Reading
These comics and cartoons exemplify the tone that Powers
For Good emulates. Use them as inspiration or even play
out these exact stories, forging your own version.
••JLA by Grant Morrison and Howard Porter
••Captain Britain and MI-13 by Paul Cornell and Leonard
Kirk
••Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassady
••New X-Men by Grant Morrison and various artists
••All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly
••Legion of Superheroes vol. 4 (1994)

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Getting
Started
Enough with the pleasantries and introductions,
courageous reader! Let’s step up and make your next
favorite hero or heroine.
There’s two parts to making characters: first you make
the team, choosing members and giving them short
descriptions. Then each player chooses a character to
play and fleshes them out as a true powerhouse in the
battle against evil.

Team Creation
You won’t be fighting the good fight alone—we’re here
to make an entire menagerie of majestic superheroes.

1. Name
Choose a name for your superhero team. Everyone has
to agree to any name you choose. If you don’t have any
ideas handy, consider yourselves The Atomic Sentinels,
the greatest heroes of the Cold War.

2. Roster
Go around the table twice, having each person (including
the GM) add one character to the team’s roster. Just
write the name of each character to the roster—you’ll fill
in more detail later.
If you can’t come up with a character, consider adding
one of these:
••Freedom ••The Silver Soldier
••Blue Eagle ••Fleet
••Girder ••Leviathan
••Microwave Man ••Binary
••Armory ••The Professor
••Electron ••Athena
••The Masked Hero ••Prowl
••Alamos

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3. Choose Heroes
Once every player has added two characters to the list,
the last player to add a hero gets to choose which hero
they will play in this adventure. The choice is theirs
alone to make; they do not have to choose a hero they
added to the roster.
The heroes that no one selects will be the supporting
cast. They’re still played by the players, not the GM, but
they’re not in the spotlight for this adventure.

4. Supporting Cast
Each member of the supporting cast is described by two
things: their personality and their powers. Just like the
heroes being played by the players, a supporting cast’s
personality is two words that sum up who they are.

Sample Supporting Cast Personalities: Relentless

crusader, inspiring leader, reluctant hero, stoic friend,
dark loner.

A supporting cast’s powers are just a short description of

what they bring to the team and how they save the day.
A good power is short (a sentence at most) and describes
what they can do in broad strokes, not specifics.

Sample Supporting Cast Powers: Outcast from the fifth

dimension, living fluid, superspeed, impossible escape
artist.

Starting with the player who chose their hero last, each
player takes turns writing either personality or powers
for one supporting cast. The same player cannot write
both the powers and personality of the same hero unless
there are no other choices left.

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Character Creation
While the team is the star of the show, the players’
characters are the ones in the spotlight. They are the
face of the team, the ones we care about, the ones we
watch dive headfirst into the noble scrum against evil
in all its forms.
During team creation each player chose one hero
to play and helped describe the supporting cast. The
supporting cast and team are done now, it’s time for
the players to give some detail to their heroes. The GM’s
job during this process is to guide everyone through the
steps and ask questions to give everyone a clearer idea
of who these heroes are.

1. Personality
While we may think of these titans of truth as elemental
forces they are also people. While they leave the
problems of everyday life behind while in costume, their
personalities still shine through.
A character’s personality is two words that describe
who they are and how they interact with others. Think of
it as a summary of how to play the character. In addition
to telling others how you envision your character, a
character’s personality can also provide a bonus when
working alongside someone who’s personality is similar
or dramatically opposed.

2. Powers
Powers are how a hero does what they have to. Think
of describing your hero’s greatest triumphs: what words
would you use to describe the tools the hero uses?
Did they rely on their supercharged brain, endless
preparations, and a gadget for every occasion? Or was
it their unlimited budget, detective skills, and kung fu?
Maybe their unmatched strength, invulnerability, alien
eyes, and inspiring presence?

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 Your character can have as many as six powers. Having
fewer than that isn’t a limitation—you can adapt your
hero as needed during play. You should have at least
three to start with just to give you a basis.
Describe each power with a few words. A good power is
one that’s big enough to be used many ways but narrow
enough to suggest how it could be used. “Shapeshifting
alien DNA” is a good power since it applies to many
things, but suggest a direct use. Powers can have clear
physical manifestations or they can be abstract qualities:
being a brilliant tactician is as much of a power as rock-
hard fists.
Powers don’t have ranks or ratings themselves. Think
of powers as the nozzle on the end of a garden hose: the
power shapes how the underlying strength can be used.

3. Core
If powers are the nozzle on the end of a hose, core dice
are the water. When you have to take up dice to back up
what your character is doing you take them from the
character’s core and apply them through their powers.
Every character starts with these dice in their core:
••d12
••d8
••d6
••d4
As you play your character the size of these dice may
change temporarily—the d12 might be downgraded to a
d10, for example—but any time you refresh your core you
set it back to these dice.

4. Determination
Every hero has reserves they can draw on when the chips
are down, this is called determination. You start with
0 determination but that will change as soon as you start
making rolls.

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Playing
the Game
When you sit down to play Powers for Good what actually
happens is a conversation. It’s not any one person’s job to
say everything or make everyone else have fun. Everyone
gets a say. Take turns, certainly, but not turns like in
chess. Take turns like you would when talking with a
group of people: let someone else talk for a bit, chime in
with your own two cents, listen and respond.
There are two modes of play in Powers For Good: action
and preparation. Action is when there’s an immediate
threat you’re interacting with—maybe a bank heist, time
bomb, or alien landing party. Preparation is all the
superhero stuff that takes place while not in the action.
That might be turning up clues about the villain’s plans,
putting a plan into motion, or simply healing up.
During play you’ll move between action and
preparation as needed. Generally you’ll know you’re in
action when you start describing what your character
does in detail: “I dash past the cybermonkies to try and
grab the bomb before it goes off.” You’re in preparation
when you describe what you’re character’s doing more
generally: “I’m going to use my connections at the police
department to look up the two-bit thug’s associates and
try to trace them back to whomever is pulling the strings.”
It’s ultimately the GM’s call if something will be resolved
as action or preparation.

Starting the Game

The GM always starts the game by presenting the player
characters in action. The exact action is up to the GM
(though the adventure in this book may provide ideas),
what’s important is that the player characters start in
heroic action. Don’t sweat how the player characters got
to the action—they’re superheroes after all.

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Action
When you act despite forces controlled by the GM
(villains, minions, natural disasters, and more) the GM
will describe the forces that stand in your way. Listen
carefully, the more obstacles are in your way the tougher
your roll will be.
The GM will tell you a target number based on the
obstacles in your way. You can then assign one dice from
your core for each power your character is using, as fits
the situation. Which dice you use is up to you, you don’t
always have to use the same dice with the same power.

“I dash through the rubble at superspeed, get to the

Doctor’s device before he knows what’s happening and
start pulling out pieces at random to disable it” I say,
trying to disable Fission’s Doomsday Device before he can
end the world. “Dr. Fission is firing bolts of nuclear energy
at you, trying to lead you by enough to hit you before
you reach it. Of course the building’s still collapsing
around you, so you’re having to dodge falling brick,
and the device is far beyond any technology you’ve ever
seen” Ben replies. “The bricks aren’t a problem, I use my
vibrational frequency to pass through them harmlessly.”
“Of course you do” Ben says with a smile, “your target
number is 6.” “Okay, I’m taking the d12 from my core for
my superspeed and a d6 for my vibrational frequency.”

Once you’ve chosen dice from your core roll all of them
together and add up the result. If you like you can spend
determination to increase you result—each point of
determination spent adds one to the total.
If your total is equal to or greater than your target
number, congratulations, you succeeded! The GM will
describe your outcome.
If your total was less than the target number you’re
in trouble. The GM will describe what happens, but you
gain a point of determination.

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 I roll my dice and get a 3 on the d12 and a 6 on the d6.
Sweet success!

No matter the outcome every roll has consequences. First,

gain a point of determination for each dice that stayed
in your pool and wasn’t rolled.

I still had two d4’s in my core while I rolled the d12 and
d6, so I mark two points of determination.

Once you’ve marked determination you can return the

dice you rolled to your core. Find the die that rolled the
highest (in case of a tie, choose the smaller die), that
die is reduced by one size and returned to your pool.
One size means the next smallest die: d12 becomes d10,
d10 becomes d8, d8 becomes d6, d6 becomes d4. If a d4
would be reduced it is instead removed from your core
entirely, you can’t roll it until your core is restored. The
only exception is if a d4 is the only die you have left, in
which case it stays a d4 no matter the roll.
All other dice are returned to your core without
changing size.

My d6 rolled highest, so I reduced it by one size to a d4

and return it to my core. I put the d12 back in my core
unchanged.

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Teamwork
While every hero is a true titan of power, together they
are something more. When your actions benefit another
hero as they roll the dice, choose a die from your core
and push it forward, this indicates that you’re helping.
When the ally you’re helping rolls, roll your helping
die as well. Your die counts towards your ally’s total and
you can choose to spend determination if you like. If your
personality is very similar or dramatically opposed with
your ally’s (your call) you add an additional 1 to the total.
This great benefit comes with risk: after the roll all
players consider all dice rolled when finding the highest
roll to reduce when returned to the core. That means that
if you rolled highest your dice will be the one reduced,
intrepid adventurer! Additionally, if you fail, you’re
subject to the effects of that failure as the GM describes
them. With great power comes great danger.

Girder is mounting an assault on the Red Brigade and I

help by creating plasma armor around him. I take a d8
from my core and push it forward to indicate my help.
When Girder rolls I also roll my d8 and get a 7. I add that
to his total, making it 15, more than enough. Since my 7
is the highest dice rolled it becomes a d6 when returned
to my core, all of Girder’s dice are not changed when
returned to his core.

An entire team of heroes can work together for truly

titanic tasks. Each can provide a helping die and a
personality bonus. Only one die is ever reduced as the
result of a roll, the highest amongst all those rolled. In
case of a tie on two dice of equal size it’s up to the heroes
involved to decide who’s die is reduced.

Supporting Cast
Each player may describe any supporting cast doing
anything they wish. If a supporting cast helps a player
character, the player adds 1 to their roll.

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Information
The GM will honestly describe the situation around you
as best you can perceive it, but sometimes a hero may
pour their considerable powers into finding something
out. Usually this is done during preparation, but if you
find yourself needing information during the GM phase
you can describe how you use one power to perceive
what you otherwise wouldn’t, reduce one of your core
dice by a step, and ask the GM one question about the
situation, the villain, or anything else pertinent. The GM
will answer honestly and completely, with details based
on the powers used.
When acting on the information the GM gives you,
you add +1 to your rolls.

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Preparation
When action dies down you’ll shift to describing what
your characters are up to in broader strokes: how they
hunt down the secret base, repair their battle suit, or
recover in their secret identity. This is all preparation.
Beware that villains don’t just twiddle their thumbs
while out of the action. The more time you take before
hunting down their base the more prepared they will
be. The same time that lets you ready for a new fight lets
them get ready as well. Sometimes you won’t even be in
control of how much time you have to prepare—the GM
will interrupt your plans with action.

Leaving Action
As soon as the action dies down (the GM gets the final
judgement on this) each player:
••Erases all their determination
••Increases each die in their core by one step. Dice that
have been removed return as d4s.
••May modify or replace one of their powers

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Preparing
The GM will ask what each player character is up to in
the lull between action. The amount of detail is up to the
GM and player, but generally a high level description
is fine—”I lay low in my secret identity for a few days”
or “I immediately go into the lab and start building a
new device to counteract the nullifier.” If the character’s
action, in the GM’s judgement, is:
••Uncovering new information, the GM answers
any one question the player has that their character
could discover, the player takes +1 when they act on
that information.
••Partaking in a normal life, the player gains 2
determination.
••Recovering, resting, or restoring, the player
increases two core dice one step each, up to the starting
core of d12, d8, d6, d4
••Putting a plan in motion, add a d4 to their core
and a power for the plan. If they’re working on an
existing plan, increase the core dice for that plan by
one size instead.

Back to Action
At some point play will transfer back to action as the
players’ actions or the villain’s plots come to fruition.
When this happens just go back to describing what your
character does in detail and using the action rules.

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Changing Characters
Each time you sit down to play Powers for Good you’ll
start with some action, switch back and forth between
preparation and action, and then eventually call it a
night. If your adventure naturally draws to a close—the
villain is defeated—that makes a good stopping point.
Otherwise, end a session with preparation, since it sets
you up for action next time.
When starting a new adventure with an established
team you can choose to play a new hero from the team’s
roster. Choose a hero that no one else is playing and
create them as a character using the rules in chapter 2.
Keep in mind their established personality and powers.
You don’t have to use them exactly, but they should serve
as a basis for whatever you come up with.
The hero you played in the previous session becomes
Supporting Cast. Keep their personality the same and
choose one power for them to use in support.

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The GM
Your job, intrepid GM, is to present the living breathing
world around the heroes. You play the villains sure, but
you’re also the wind in their hair as they swing from
skyscraper to skyscraper and the pavement that cracks
beneath their mighty knuckles. Play your roles with
gusto, embellish freely, and follow these rules.
Yes, GM, you have rules too. These rules guide you, just
like the players’ rules guide them. You’ll still be using the
full power of your considerable creativity, but working
with a set of rules that help shape that creativity into the
evil plots and great acts that heroes deserve.
Your rules hinge on your goals. Your goals are what
you’re playing to do. They’re not goals that you reach
and are done with, they’re things that you strive for
over and over again. To help you do that, you always
act according to your guides. Your guides are things you
always do, all the time, to promote a comic book feel.
From moment to moment you’ll be making threats. A
threat is a way of taking the fictional world around the
players and shaping it into something that they have to
react to. Threats are ways of driving action, drawing the
players in, and making the game roll onwards.

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Goals
••Play to find out what happens
••Throw the players into action
••Honestly describe the world around the heroes
These are it, these are what you’re playing to do.
First and foremost, play to find out what happens.
You’ll know the villain’s plot, sure, but that’s just the
villain’s plan, and no plan survives contact with the
enemy. You are not here to guide the players from one
encounter to the next. All you know is what resources the
villain has to bring to bare at any time, their plan may
adapt. Even the powers available to them may change. Be
dynamic; don’t guide the players to a known conclusion.
Your next goal is to throw the players into
action. Superheroes are reactive by nature, so give
them something to react to. Strike at the world around
them. Do something nefarious. Above all, give them
action to dive in to.
You are responsible for the whole world, which can
be a daunting task. Fear not, GM! While you may have
the entire world to work with, you’ll already know what
tools the villain has at their disposal. Beyond that all you
need to do is honestly describe the world around
the heroes. Give them details of their surroundings,
their actions, their enemies. Appeal to their senses. Bring
the world to life.
Of course this isn’t just any world, this is a heroic
world. Don’t worry over how the heroes fit into society,
how the courts work when a superpowered villain is
brought in by a masked vigilante. Don’t worry about the
heroes get to the location to confront the villain. If there’s
something that doesn’t seem to make sense, gloss over
it—this is a world where masked heroes do daily battle
against titanic forces that would enslave mankind.

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Guides
••Address the players by their superhero names
••Use comic book logic
••Bring everyone to life
••Ask questions
••Think off-panel
Your guides are what you do, all the time, to promote
your goals.
You address the players by their superhero
names because this is all about the heroes, right? You
don’t ask Dan what he’s doing because what he’s doing is
playing a game. What his character, Freedom, is doing
on the other hand is probably far more interesting.
Comic book logic prevails because without it
superheroes just don’t make much sense. Don’t worry
about how one person can hold an entire bridge without
just punching though it, or why running at superspeed
doesn’t cause some inconvenient sonic booms. This is
a comic, faithful GM! Powers are not something set in
stone that we can measure, they are constantly changing
ways for heroes to save the day in unexpected ways and
show their true colors.
Of course that doesn’t mean everything is believable. If
someone does something that just really doesn’t fit at all,
talk it over with them and adjust. Set your threshold for
disbelief as high as it will go and get on with the game.
While the players just think about one character you
have to bring everyone to life. You bring the masses of
bystanders, villains, sidekicks, and everyone else
to life by playing them simply and with vigor. Take your
first assumption about every character the heroes meet
and play it big. When the heroes meet a mad scientist
don’t reach for a detailed, nuanced character. Simply
think of the stock mad scientists you’ve seen in comics,
movies, and TV, and sell that to the players with details.
A memorable GM character is not filled with complexity;
they are understood and easy to identify.

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 Even when presenting the entire world you don’t
have to know everything. Ask questions and use the
answers. If a player’s question puts you on the spot and
you don’t know the answer, turn it back around to them.
When Isaac says to me “Have I fought Dr. Fission before?”
I simply reply “I don’t know, have you? He’s been around
for a while, it’s certainly possible.” What you ask about
is up to you; you’re not obligated to let the players have
a say over anything but their characters. But when you
do come across something you don’t already know the
answer to, use the players as a resource to fill it in.
Even though the heroes are the stars, important
things can take place off-panel. Not every event
takes place in front of the player characters, you can have
a dramatic event occur off-panel and just show them
the results. The villain doesn’t have to flip the switch on
the doomsday machine in front of the players for them
to see the effects.

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Threats
Threats are how you find ways to drive the action forward.
They’re guides to you, the GM, to take the whirling
situation around the players and drive it forward.
During play you may know that something bad
happens, either because the players missed a roll or
because the villains are acting without interference.
Threats are ways to find a specific answer to “what goes
wrong now?” They’re a lens you can use to view the
world and find the consequences of a failed roll or a
new dastardly act.
Your threats are:
••Do irreparable harm to something valuable
••Take definite hold of something or someone
••Put someone in a spot
••Exploit a weakness
••Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask

Do irreparable harm to something valuable

Look for something important or useful that can be hurt
and hurt it. The villain is firing blast of atomic energy
every which way? You can use that as this type of threat
by saying “a blast of energy strikes the airfoil and it
starts to drop from the sky as the electronics short out,
what do you do?”

Take definite hold of something or someone

Look for a villain (or environmental factor) that can
take control of something—maybe a location, weapon,
or hostage. The ground is crumbling as the earthquake
rages? You can use that as this type of threat by saying
“the sidewalk under Prowl gives way and he tumbles into
the depths, what do you do?”

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Put someone in a spot
Look for someone (likely a player character, but maybe
supporting cast or innocent bystander) and put them
someplace dangerous, inconvenient, or otherwise hostile.
The heroes are fighting a raging battle in a deserted
industrial complex? You can use this type of threat by
saying “your punch throws the robot back into one of
the smokestacks which starts to crumble and bring the
entire building down around you, what do you do?”

Exploit a weakness
Look for a point where the heroes are weak and exploit
that. This may be intentional on the part of a villain or
simple bad luck for the player characters. The Professor
has waded into battle in his power armor? You can use
this type of threat by saying “the assassin dodges your
blow and with a deft strike cuts through the weak join
in your armor, rendering your left arm powerless, what
do you do?”

Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask

Look for a way the heroes could overcome a failure and
tell them what they’ll risk to do it. This is a particularly
good threat for a failed roll: they can still do what they
set out to, but they’ll have to compromise to get it. Alamos
is trying to reach Dr. Fission before he can set off the
bomb? You can use this threat by saying “the only way
you can get to him in time is to make a dive—you’ll stop
him, but you’ll both go tumbling off the platform, what
do you do?”

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Rolling the Dice
When the players act despite some obstacle—your villains,
the environment, or anything else—it’s time to roll the
dice. Usually the players will declare they do something,
like “I grab the gem before he can get to it,” and you’ll
tell them “well, you’re trying to beat him to it, so you’ll
have to roll.”
The player needs you to tell them what number to
roll against.
If the player is at a disadvantage, tell them
their target number is 7. If the player is doing
something that’s outside their hero’s abilities or
competing against someone that’s better than them (an
average human brawling with a chemically enhanced
goliath) they’re at a disadvantage.
If the player as at an advantage, tell them
their target number is 3. If the player is doing
something that’s their character’s focus or competing
against someone that’s beneath them (an expert martial
artist against a group of thugs) they’re at an advantage.
Otherwise, tell them their target number is 5.
This covers anything that doesn’t clearly put the player
at advantage or disadvantage: racing against another
super-speedster, or holding up a collapsing building
with the might of Jupiter.

Success
When the player’s roll is equal to or greater than the
target number they succeed. That means that things turn
out as well as could be hoped—the concrete details are
up to your judgement. In some cases the best a character
can hope for may be pretty bad, that’s fine so long as you
give the player the best potential outcome.
Especially in cases where the best possible outcome
isn’t great, tell the player what a likely success is going
to be: “well, this is an entire skyscraper falling on your
head, at best you’ll hold it for a minute or two.”

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Failure
When the player’s roll is less than the target number
they fail. That means that something goes wrong for
them—the situation deteriorates in some way. Use your
threats to help figure out what that is—remember that
your threats are tools to figure out what “something goes
wrong” means in any given situation.
In some cases “something goes wrong” may not be
too bad. A skilled martial artist versus a gang of street
thugs isn’t really at risk of being taken captive, but they
might get surrounded or slowed down long enough for
the mastermind to get away.
Always tell the player likely outcomes of a failure, at
least in general terms: “you’re taking a big risk here,
failure means you’ll probably be out of the fight” or “at
worst, this’ll take some time, and let the mastermind
get away.”

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Villainous Plots
The dastardly doers-of-evil that the heroes face are what
drives heroic adventures. The heroes are fundamentally
reactive—without some evil plot in motion they’d be
reduced to saving kittens from trees and helping old folks
across the street. As a GM, your job is to bring a villain’s
plot to life and let the players do their best against it.
This idea of an evil scheme is known as a villainous
plot (that’s plot as in a plan, not plot as in a story).
Writing up your villainous plan—or using the one in this
book—makes it easy to put your players into the action.
A villainous plot is made up of an agenda, countdown,
and resources. The agenda is what the villain is trying
to accomplish. The countdown is what will happen,
unless the players intervene. You may end up adding
more as play progresses, each tracking some events set
in motion. Finally, the resources are what the villain
has at their disposal. The villain themself is usually a
resource to their own plot.
Each resource might be a thing, person, connection,
debt, or a group of one or more of those. Each individual
resource list what’s it’s powerful in, and what it’s weak
in. These serve as a guide to the GM on what situations
might put a given hero at advantage or disadvantage. A
intelligent computer virus might be powerful in digital
hijacking, putting any but the most technological
heroes at a disadvantage to stop it from taking over the
computers of a missile silo. It’s always the GM’s call if
advantage or disadvantage is warranted, powerful and
weak areas are a guide to help the GM.

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Using Villainous Plots
Start by reading over the plot. Once you’ve got a broad
idea of it, you’re ready to play.
Start play with the player characters arriving to
interfere with the first step of the countdown. Choose
some resources that fit the situation and throw them at
the heroes. Then see what happens.
Sometimes the heroes will fail. They’ll run out of core
dice and be at your mercy. What happens to them is up
to the villain—most will at least want a chance to taunt
the heroes before doing away with them in the most
obnoxious way possible. Update the countdown as it
moves along without the players’ intervention. If the
villain’s plan for the helpless heroes isn’t immediate,
start a new countdown for it as well.
Sometimes the heroes will interfere with the plan,
but not stop it. Take a look at the remaining parts of
the countdown and update them to work with what the
villain has. Maybe if they didn’t get the power core in
their raid they’ll try for a different power source, or
choose a new target for their lass powerful death beam—
whatever you think the villain would do to pursue their
agenda.
Sometimes the heroes will entirely derail the plot.
That’s great. Look at what resources the villain has left
and consider the villain’s disposition. Will they make
an all-out assault? Start a new plan? Retreat to plan
something worse?
Don’t get invested in any given outcome. Entire teams
of heroes can be made quickly, so don’t worry if they get
wiped out. Villains and their resources are only limited by
the GM’s imagination. There’s always another adventure.

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Dr. Fission vs.
The World
Dr. Fission was once Doctor Frederick Eshawn, a noted
pioneer of atomic power. A horrible lab accident twisted
his body, leaving him a strange mutant only able to
survive in an environment full of radiation. His only
choice for survival was a specially crafted suit that keeps
him alive in a cloud of radiation that would be deadly
to anyone else. Deprived of human contact the Doctor
was driven mad, blaming society for his condition and
setting out to create a world full of radiation in which
he could survive without his suit.

Agenda
Bring about a radiated wasteland where Dr. Fission can
survive without his suit.

Countdown
••Attack on the Atoll: distract the heroes
••Out to Launch: send Fissionbots to steal nuclear weapons
while heroes are occupied
••The Doctor Is In: set off the world’s nuclear weapons
and bring about Dr. Fission’s perfect vision

Attack on the Atoll

Dr. Fission has planted false information to draw two
groups of heroes in to conflict so that his true plan
may move forward unhindered! Using government
double agents Dr. Fission has convinced international
superteam The All Nation Squad that the player
characters are planning to steal something valuable
from remote Suwarrow Atoll while at the same time
planting information for the player characters that The
All Nation Squad is doing the same. Likely Resources:
Government double agents, Red Star, Hurricane, Djinn,
Strike, Cosmos, Fortress.

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Out to Launch!
While the battle raged on Suwarrow Atoll Dr. Fission
put his fissionbots in motion to infiltrate missile silos
all over the world! Using their advanced technology
and pure force they’ll launch the missiles towards Dr.
Fission. Unless someone can stop them, that is. Likely
Resources: Fissionbots (a lot of them)

The Doctor Is In
Hovering high over the Earth in his nuclear suit Dr.
Fission is gathering the world’s atomic armaments to
create a destructive blast that will leave him as the
sole inhabitant of Earth. What hope remains? Likely
Resources: Dr. Fission, rogue warheads

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Resources
These are Dr. Fission’s primary resources, his arsenal of
annihilation.

Government Double Agents

Governments around the world have been infiltrated by
Dr. Fission’s moles. They’ll do his bidding and turn the
great political powers to his whims (though once found
out, they’re done).
Powerful: Deception, twisting government resources
Weak: Confrontation, overt action

Red Star
A Chinese hero gifted with the light and gravity of a star.
Powerful: Light blasts, gravity manipulation
Weak: Endurance, control

Hurricane
Originally from the island of St. Lucia, Hurricane was
swept out to sea only to be blessed by water spirits with
control of water in all its forms.
Powerful: Water control, dedication
Weak: Combat skills, strategy

Djinn
Searing fire with human form, Djinn is a purifying flame
barely contained.
Powerful: Fire, reckless action
Weak: Teamwork

Strike
The only remaining survivor of a super soldier program,
Strike’s seemingly human body conceals one of the most
inspiring tactical minds.
Powerful: Inspiration, tactics
Weak: Lightly enhanced, failing enhancements

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Cosmos
Falling to Earth isn’t so bad, if you survive. The cause
of Cosmos’s powers are unclear, but when the re-entry
capsule failed Cosmos’s powers manifested and allowed
her to return to earth safely.
Powerful: Indestructible, energy absorption
Weak: Untrained

Fortress
The Castle That Walks was once a tower in some crumbling
keep. Waking to a strange sentience, Fortress took to
defending those without the benefit of a body of stone.
Powerful: Towering, made of stone
Weak: Slow, cares too much

Fissionbots
Nothing like a nuclear powered robot to do your bidding.
Powerful: Destruction, computer overrides
Weak: Improvisation

Dr. Fission
Driven mad by the power suit that contains him (and is
powered by him) Dr. Fission wants nothing more than
to make the world into a nuclear wasteland paradise.
Powerful: Nuclear blasts, mad plans
Weak: Self control, bragging

Rogue Warheads
Once Dr. Fission has control of the missiles he’ll use them
as his own personal puppets driven by the technology
of his suit.
Powerful: Blowing up
Weak: Everything else

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