Tommy's Take on Improbable Tales: Helicarrier Heist (Savage Worlds)

Running a Savage Worlds supers campaign? Fainting Goat Games provides a lot of support for that (or, probably, for the system of your choice). And here is one such entry: Helicarrier Heist.


TRUTH IN GAMING JOURNALISM DISCLAIMER: Didn't pay for this. Mike Lafferty of Fainting Goat Games sent it to me around the time it was released in mid-2018, but I was much more sporadic in my reviewing at that time (I'm trying to get better for the five or so of you who really seem to like my reviews). I have previously been a judge for The BAMFsies, which Mike set up, as well as a guest on his podcast a couple of times. In fact, I think he's the only person to ever ask me back. And did it more than once, but we couldn't make the scheduling work. That said, I always try to tackle each product on its own merits. Oh, affiliate links in this review may lead to me receiving a portion of your purchases at DriveThruRPG as store credit.

JUST THE FACTS:

• Full color
• 31 pages
• No bookmarks
• This version is for Savage Worlds, but versions exist for Fate Core, ICONS and Supers.
• Current price at the time of this review is $2.99.
• It's designed to use the 2nd edition of the Savage Worlds Super Powers Companion and the Savage Worlds Deluxe rules system.

WHAT'S IT ABOUT?

• It's about Captain America having to raid a Helicarrier and swipe an Ultron unit from Hydra.
• No, really, they more or less admit it up front. Nothing wrong with that. 99% of all non-licensed supers stuff are just Marvel and DC stuff with the serial numbers still mostly visible. In this case, BAMF assigning your heroes the task of raiding a NEST Helicarrier because they have a UNITY unit (that's a lot of acronyms) and bug out with it.
• If you don't like the idea of swiping a UNITY robot? There's a d6 chart of alternatives that all fit the genre (not that supers isn't already a pretty broad genre).
• The adventure has a very loose outline to guide the GM, but this is pretty much a location based scenario. You have heroes, you have a plan, you have an objective, you have bad guys roaming around, and stuff is going to happen.
• They even provide alternate ideas for getting on the Helicarrier if you don't want to do something as simple as "BAMF sneaks you onboard".
• Section 1 is pretty basic: Just moving through the Helicarrier, presumably in disguise, so not having to do a lot of sneaking...just don't have to be obvious.
• Warhammer is apparently a big deal among NEST agents.
• Section 2 is more interesting, as they have to encounter more patrols (by merit of the fact that they are moving around the ship), and thus risk blowing their identities. I would 100%use the random encounter table for this if I ran it, though, as the idea of randomly running into the NEST Leader or a superhero who has been captured and is being transported is too interesting to pass up (more likely, I would use the standard patrols once or twice, roleplay those encounters, then spice it up with the random table).
•  In the third act, things go south. A random table will help you along the way. Some great options here, such as a hurricane threatening the Helicarrier and everyone aboard, or a team of mercenaries attacking the ship to still the UNITY robot (or whatever you decided the MacGuffin should be).
• Section 4 is the climax - a throwdown with NEST to escape with the MacGuffin and get off the Helicarrier.
• Section 5 lists some of the consequences of success or failure: BAMF appreciates what you did (if you succeed), and NEST marks you as an enemy. Miss your transport out of there? Oops...better find another. Or maybe the UNITY robot gets activated and now you have to deal with that, too. And if you get captured? There's a sidebar AND a random table for that.
• A map of the Helicarrier is included, and it reminds me quite a bit of the old Marvel FASERIP blueprints. Not a bad thing.
• Pretty much everything you need to know about NEST is included, along with stat blocks for all the NEST guys you'll require, plus the UNITY robot.
• 5 pregenerated heroes are included: Three of them (Green Turtle, Black Fury and Nightbird) are legacy characters based on Golden Age heroes who have now become public domain (complete with sidebars on their histories), and two are very familiar pastiches (The Shield and Captain Cosmic certainly bring Captain America and the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel to mind).
• There's even a whole sidebar on taking most of what's here and making a few changes to emulate the climax of The Winter Soldier instead.

FINAL THOUGHTS?

• I honestly was not expecting so many random tables. Seeing as how I love random tables, that's a win in my book.
• I love the options for changing things up a bit, even if I thought the layout of the scenario was fine as is.
• The legacy characters were a really nice touch, as I wasn't familiar with them or their creators (I'd heard of Green Turtle, but was otherwise unfamiliar), so those sidebars were a great bonus.
• If you want to run it with Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, you'll have to do any statblock conversions yourself. I haven't played around with the Super Powers Companion and SWADE much to see if anything wobbles or breaks when they are combined.
• Despite how much I love Savage Worlds, supers gaming, and my Necessary Evil campaign, I'm not super high on Savage Worlds as my default supers system. If that's a stumbling block for you, there are three other systems linked above (ICONS is my preference of those three, not that you asked). That said, I actually can't wait to see what an Adventure Edition-compatible Super Powers Companion is going to look like.
• The scenario is just what I like in a scenario: A strong skeleton with room for you to hang meat on the bones if you want to tweak it or expand it. And well worth it for the price, too.