It's amazing how having a common problem (and having a week to think about things) can make apologizing that much easier.
Just like how it's amazing that Rob went two years without looking at Tony's backstory.
For those of you wondering specifics, Tony was a pre-gen character for the original Industrial Investigations campaign. Rob overhauled the ability scores, class build, and feats, but kept the name and backstory because he didn't feel like making his own.
I'm gonna be honest, I'm still a little confused what Kevin and Rob's respective plans were that got messed up by each other/Gwyn. It just seemed like Tony and Warmachine fighting for no reason, and then Kevin was doing...something.
Anyone mind filling me in on the obvious stuff I've missed?
Kevin didn't really have much of a plan beyond "kill Tony", to be fair. Rerailing the campaign would've been a nice bonus, but the only reason it irritated him enough to withhold the palladium substitute was realizing that Rob was going out of his way to keep Iron Man going.
Gwyneth hasn't really messed up any of their plans yet, but they're still treating her as the bigger threat here because:
* Rob is hurt because she tried to have Tony killed, and is annoyed that, by her own admission, she's going to go back to selling weapons (stopping that was one of the conditions to her taking over Stark Industries) as soon as he isn't around to stop her anymore.
* Kevin was too busy trying to put the final nail in Rob's coffin to think about it, but if she has full unconditional control over Stark Industries, Pepper will functionally be as overpowered a character as Tony, to the point of being able to hire whatever muscle she wants. Since she's the only Evil character in the party and (bare minimum) Clark and Scarlett likely wouldn't be willing to get on board with Gwyneth's new direction, he feels obligated to help stop her.
Sorry for not making that clearer, I feel like it's probably a consequence of doing relatively rapid-fire scheme reveals.
Heh, tangentially related at best, but I remember an incident from way back with my high school gaming group. Super abridged version: my character, who was still relatively new at the time but that I enjoyed running, caught a crossbow bolt to the chest that killed him. Except it shouldn't have, because both the GM and I forgot the rule that game had (GURPS Third Edition, Revised) about the maximum damage a crossbow bolt to the torso can do.
I was in church the next morning (we gamed on Saturday), and while singing a hymn, suddenly I remembered the rule we forgot. After services, I called our GM to point it out. So, instead of this character dying, it was ruled he just passed out and was mistaken for dead. Yay!
ETT #5- Rob is only pretending to "forget" about that sourcebook to hide the fact that he wrote it himself once he found out about palladium poisoning. He was also faking when Kevin told him about the palladium poisoning, of course. And he's pretending he doesn't know about his character's backstory so it isn't suspicious. Rob obviously created Howard Stark as another broken artificer so he could justify Tony Stark in the campaign.
But seriously, I do think Steve Rodgers is going to be an old friend of Kevin's. After Chris gets beefed up with Super Soldier mutagen, Rob will help him with his build by giving him a magic technologically advanced shield made of mithril vibranium with the Multishot and Returning properties, completing Captain America.
And I just realized that there are quite a few disgruntled Stark employees that help Mysterio out. Evil Bert from Legal can still happen!
Author Notes:
Just like how it's amazing that Rob went two years without looking at Tony's backstory.
For those of you wondering specifics, Tony was a pre-gen character for the original Industrial Investigations campaign. Rob overhauled the ability scores, class build, and feats, but kept the name and backstory because he didn't feel like making his own.