LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL: ACTION SCENE: MEET THE PRESS
Now that the MRA has a sponsor in congress, the heroes need to take their message to the people. They need to convince the fence-sitters that the SHRA is too extreme a measure that essentially means slavery for some of their friends and neighbors, and that most heroes are well-meaning citizens that deserve the same protection as the rest of society. The easiest way to spread the word is through the press.
The heroes will have to schedule interviews with several reporters for several major news networks as well as local news stations. This scene focuses on one of those interviews. The heroes must sway the reporter in order to sway the reporter’s audience. Swaying the reporter means stressing him out either mentally or emotionally. If successful the heroes can use their next Transition Scene to gain a Court of Public Opinion Resource equal to the hero’s Psych Specialty (D6 if they don’t have the Psych speciality) that they can use in the Action Scene APPEARING BEFORE CONGRESS.
Allow the heroes an opportunity to choose their venue. Major news outlets often have political affiliations (whether subtly or boldly) and the heroes may prefer to choose an interview with a sympathetic audience. Or they may prefer to try to sway their harshest critics. Their best bet will be to chose a relatively neutral venue to target the widest audience.
Remember, unless the heroes chose a venue sympathetic to their cause, the interviewer will attempt to pin the heroes down with tough questions (if he’s a pro-SHRA-leaning news anchor, he might even use lies about the heroes and try to make the heroes look bad). If all of the characters are stressed out before they stress out the interviewer, the heroes have failed to garner public support for their cause.
EFFECTS ON THE SCENE
The Watcher can introduce the following effects during this scene:
- Protesters: If the interview takes place before a studio audience or outside, anti-superhuman protesters can interrupt the interview. This creates an Angry Crowd distinction that can turn into a complication. Perhaps the Watcher can use another die from the doom pool to introduce a charismatic leader for the protesters with whom the heroes can argue. If the protester leader takes more than D8 emotional stress, he’ll attack, and his followers will join in.
- Dirt In The Wound: The interviewer has come up with some bit of dirt on one of the heroes (true or not) that he uses as evidence that the hero can’t be trusted, and claims that this is reason enough to reject his proposal. The Watcher should activate an Opportunity in order to build the doom pool in order to simulate this.
- Counterpoint: The interviewer brings on another guest, one opposed to the heroes’ stance on the MRA. Now the heroes must contend with the new guest, whose every action is to heal the stress inflicted on the interviewer or otherwise support the interviewer. If they inflict either mental or emotional trauma on the guest, he is taken out of play. A good possibility for this is Walter DeClun; he wants the SHRA to go through because it will more deeply polarize the metahuman community, and so the passage of the MRA means lost profits for him. However, he’ll argue in public that the MRA doesn’t go far enough to ensure public safety, and that only the SHRA will protect the people.
NEXT: ACTION SCENE: APPEARING BEFORE CONGRESS
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