Our MavenCon event was a big success. I'm pretty sure the players had as much fun as I did, and I had a blast.

I started by asking the players if they had a genre they'd like to play in, and someone suggested steampunk. This seemed agreeable to everyone. I pointed out then that one of the strengths of StoryCards was the ability to mashup genres, and drew on the Random Genre Table for something else to combine in: mutants. Thus was born the Society for the Apprehension of Dastardly Deviants (SADD): a team of steampunk mutant hunters. Someone threw out the suggestion that each PC should also have his or her own secret mutant power, and I knew we had a winner. We set the game at the Epic power level, and I went to create the adventure while Scotto helped create characters.

The characters were:
* Lady Vision, who could see people's D&D-style alignments.
* Trea, a waifish creature with the ability to control fire.
* Ironheart, a leonine human with deadly archery and a morbid fear of water.
* Rounder, a heartless bastard with a coat of many things, and who never lost at darts.
* OzymandIas, a burly dwarf who hated having his name mispronounced.
* Charles, a reformed thief with a lightning generator implanted in his throat.
* Lord Brock, who used a telegraph pole for a club.

The team was summoned by their mentor, Dr. Xandros, who sent them to rescue the Emperor of France and his family from a group of mutants that had escaped the Bastille and were running amok in the City of Lights. At Versailles they fought off Pyrrique (a human torch), Rampàge (a rhino man), Le Bomb (an explosion thrower), and Le Plague (a rat controller): four mutants that the players named "from a newspaper article they'd read about the breakout on the way over in the airship." (I loved the names they came up with!) They did a great job of dispatching the bad guys until someone set Rampàge on fire and he ran amok in the Palace of Mirrors. At that point the Empress thanked them profusely and _insisted_ that they borrow some autocarriages and go into the city, where other mutants were holding the Emperor at the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

Not wanting to give up the element of surprise, the party entered Notre Dame via the roof rather than bashing in the doors: Lord Brock threw Ironheart to the roof with a rope, he and Ozymandias climbed up, and they hauled everyone else up because none of them managed the single strength success needed to climb the rope themselves. They found the Emperor in the catacombs, but it was a trap: as Lord Brock charged in to free him, a mutant with blinding powers stepped around the corner and dazzled him, Lady Vision, and Trea. Then the "Emperor" started beating Lord Brock with his chains. The rest of the party took a different tunnel and encountered a lone grinning swordsman. He stymied them for a few rounds with his inertia-dampening power (and nearly took OzymandIas's head off) before Charles blasted him in the face with lightning. Meanwhile, Lord Brock took out his two assailants by charging with his arms spread into the far wall, knocking out all three of them at about the same time Trea accidentally set him on fire. The last mutant, a plant controller, surrendered eagerly, and the Emperor (hidden in another tunnel) was saved.

My only regret was that we ran out of time before the players could fight the climactic battle against Magnétro, the mutant leader. He was turning the Eiffel Tower into a giant magnet to pull a meteor down from space and smash the city. Unfortunately, even in a freeform system like StoryCards, combat takes time, and three combat scenes is too much for seven players in a four hour session. But judging by the smiles and laughter, I think the adventure ended well enough.

The players were very creative in using their fortune cards to affect the story. Rounder used The River, along with a fantastic pistol shot, to redirect a fountain at Pyrrique. Ironheart used The Arrow, with his three-point (!) marksmanship skill, to take out Le Bomb in one shot through the head. OzymandIas used The Vermin to disease the vines that tried to tangle them in the catacombs. They were a great group of players, and I hope I get the chance to play with them again: we'll certainly be at MavenCon again next year!