Recruitment

[Patriot]

How Does your team recruit new members, ( do you actually role-play it out?)

[nblade]

Sadly for most games I've been in, this has never really been role-played out. Which is really a shame, because there is fun to be had if you have the right people. Most groups I've been in, are looking to get into the action and seem to miss out on the "Administrative" Stuff.

For me the Superhero genre is harder to setup groups. It seems in most games, its all about who you meet at a bar or some other contrived method. Supers is not really the case. For example I'm starting a new campaign this weekend, each player has been give clues to place them at first battle with the bad guys. Each player has different reasons for being there. At least in the begining. It will be interesting to say the least.

[Monolith]

There is usually quite a bit of role-playing involded in that in my games, but for me it always seems strange because that is the one aspect of the game that is really not alterable by role-playing. A player makes a character and he wants to join. It is not as if the player's character is not going to be allowed to join. :)

To be honest though, it is seldom that new characters are introduced in my games. In 15 years of playing Champions I have only had 3 heroes die. So the only time a player brings in a new character is when the get bored with their current characters; and once again my players usually pick what they want and stick with it.

In general though, my players want to role-play everything. Sometimes it seems nearly impossible to get to a second day in game time. :)

[winterhawk]

One of the best roleplaying sessions I've ever been a part of was a recruitment drive on the part of our team. This was the early 90s when the Giffen JLA was firing on all cylinders. There was a 'cattle call' by the JLA and some of the lamest (and most hysterical) showed up to to apply (Stinkbug and Proboscis Lad being two memorable applicants). The group all read JLA and, during a marathon "let's drink a lot and talk about comics/gaming", we all thought the scene was a gas. The GM took our ramblings to heart and had a similar cattle call, with some of the funniest characters he could come up with. I can rarely recall laughing so hard. Not serious roleplay, but still a great time.

[Enforcer84]

The old TSR Marvel Universe game had something like that in their second Avengers sourcebook. It was an adventure where the some of the PC's were given the honor and the challenge of openning an Avengers "franchise" in thier area. A tryout was held and they had a nice list of available and second string characters, and told the GM to make up some losers to go along with it. I went one better and rolled up 25 would be heroes; added eleven marvel heroes to the 2nd stringers list, and voila! I had close to 50 characters. The guys who failed eventually formed 3 groups, two hero and one villain. It was a fun campaign.

[Jhamin]

We just had a character switch. A player wanted a hero with a dark past, so I created a villian and ran her as an NPC for several months before she saw the light and reformed.

We are now roleplaying the character's first attempts at heroics and how the rest of the team responds to their old nemesis showing up for the weekly team briefing.

[Thirdbase]

My group generally roleplays out the addition of new characters to the group, and some groups have an incredibly high turn over rate, not through deaths, but for other reasons.
I had a Russian character in one campaign, that the GM stomped all over a PsychLim and made him realize that he needed to go back to Russia to work it out. The GM was upset because he was planning a plot line around the character, I was upset because I liked the character, but what he did made the most sense. He was replaced by an involutary VIPER expierement that foiled a bank robbery, he was planning on committing, and gave his real name to the press, the local hero team volunteered him into protective custody.
Other campaigns have had two would be heroes nearly kill each other. Another had the local hero hunting my character as a menace vigilante, after he publicly killed someone that attacked him. It was self-defense. Honestly.

[Hermit]

Not really with my groups, no. I tend to let my players (small group of friends) form the teams first, instead of joining an existing one.

Now, sometimes I solo a friend, who is the only PC in a small group of NPCs. Recently, her character's team in that was asked by the mayor (in exchange for a favor) to show more affirmitive action in selection and expand the membership. The Press had a field day debating the ramifications of this for a bit. :)

[ProfessorM@ss]

Originally posted by Patriot
How Does your team recruit new members, ( do you actually role-play it out?)

My current campaign's superteam was put together as a covert strike force by the government. Until they went rogue, they were assigned members, who got hazed, the whole military schtick.

Since they've gone rogue, it's much more fun to have them run into potential allies and enemies, some of whom have been "guest-starred" by players. In our current session, our anti-heroes are actually going to have to work with a character who is effectively Superman at age 80 (and, yes, my Supes clone ages at a largely normal rate -- he can see through walls, but he still needs his glasses to make out what he sees!).

I've found the "guest star" concept to be surprisingly useful. Our group plays quite often, and people occasionally get bored with their characters. It's quite invigorating to have the team's stealthy shapeshifter play a brick for a session.

Another variation on this theme which happened in my last campaign is playing characters from your game universe's timeline for a session or two. Imagine playing your current PC's grandson...or grandfather. Or another famous historical or mythical figure (i.e. Merlin, Jesse James, etc.)...and have those characters' actions affect the game timeline you usually play in.

Funfunfun!

--->M@ss

[Tamashii2000]

My current group got the 'Guess what, your a team" treatment. Two of them started out as friends who patroled, togather, they ran into a (NPC) hero who allowed them use of his base's computers (said base used to house a team but was abandoned after said time got killed off) and a short time later, someone connected to the NPC hero... Introduced them to the media as the 'new protectors' something NONE of the hero's (including the NPC) expected.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Patriot
How Does your team recruit new members, ( do you actually role-play it out?)

One of the best sessions I ever had was a Champions version of the Marvel SHRPG adventure "Avengers Experimental Franchise".

Two of the Six players were recruited by the Avengers and they had a recruitment drive. The other four players made up 3 characters each and I inserted about 20 NPC's and the characters had a try out.

One of the PCs didn't get picked (not ONE of his 3 characters made the cut) :p

It was very funny, in the end the roster included:
* Reach - A little accountant that had telekenesis
* Life-Man - Who couldn't be killed... that was it... his only power.
* Bounce - a guy who could... um... bounce.

But it was great team... and it was a fun session, very much like Mystery Men.

[berry04]

I just recently started a campaign in Millenium City. I completley removed the Champions the scene - creating somthing of a vaccuum. I also relocated Kinetic because one of the players is a speedster and I didn't want to steal any of his thunder.

I ran each hero through a brief solo scenerio to establish some background and introduce a few future plot hooks. None of the heroes possessed any connection to each other.

I used an old Golden Age character, Captain Able, to bring the group together. He recognizes he does not have much time left and wants to leave a legacy. He sees the creation of a new team in Millenium City as the perfect opportunity. He has gone ahead and secured funding and sanction for his proposed team and is now working on recruitment. He brought the players together, along with other local heroes; Nightwind, Binary Man, Dr. Silverback, Cavalier and a few home grown NPC heroes.

We had a lot of fun roleplaying the introductions and discussing issues concerning the formation of a new team. Many of the NPCs bowed out quickly, including Nightwind, Cavalier, and Dr. Silverback. Binary Man is sticking it out through the recruitment pitch - at the bequest of his employers - but has no intention of remaining.

Captain Able will also fade to the background once the team gets going - I only intend for him to serve as a mentor. Depending on how the campaign progresses, I hope to eventually provide a suitably dramatic end for the good Captain.

[Acroyear]

Usually a larger entity just requests a character to join the team or they just end up on the team by default (by being at the same place a couple times). If recruitment was left up to the players, there'd be nothing but a bunch of solos and a couple of duos.

[MisterVimes]

Originally posted by Acroyear
Usually a larger entity just requests a character to join the team or they just end up on the team by default (by being at the same place a couple times). If recruitment was left up to the players, there'd be nothing but a bunch of solos and a couple of duos.

I'm really happy with my latest group. They were brought together by the storyline and after the first story arc (which ended last wednsday) they met in a park (conversing through our mailing list) and decided to form a team to protect their city... It reads like a Stan Lee comic... I am so proud.

[Acroyear]

Our characters tend to dislike each other... mostly due to dumb combat moves or something that screws someone else over or just sheer stupidity. It's pretty funny, actually.

[Supreme]

We've always role-played the team's formation in all of our games, though often that happens very differently. We usually go one of two ways. Most common is the old new super-heroes get drawn together by a common threat. I never like this one much because it stretches coincidence too far for my tastes and is the most over-done of them all. An idea that I've had a significant amount of success with is the story where all the PCs know each other before they get their powers, and its the same accident that gives them all their powers. I like this story more because it cuts out the parts that I consider to be the most annoying, which is the paranoia and debates over whether or not to share secret IDs. Cutting out those annoying bits also leaves more time for the development of the individuals as super-heroes and as a team.

I think that the only real drawback to the group-origin scenario is that -depending on the group origin- it prevents PCs from making several different kinds of characters. Unless everyone is a highly-trained martial artist or a powered-armor user, then no one can be one of those things. Generally, PCs also all have to have a similar background. Either their members of the same family, colleagues in the same company, or they have some other common activity that brings them together when the glowing meteors fall out of the sky.

[MilkmanDan]

Our group is financed by a wealthy corporation, and introductions are pretty much a case of "Here's your new team member". Would like to roleplay it a bit more, as we've had by and large very odd and eccentric characters.

[Blackout]

One of the things I'm toying with for a Champions campaign (I toy with about a million ideas which, sadly, rarely come to fruition...but that's another story), is to start things off with a casting call for a superhero reality TV show.

Someone wants to start a superhero team (for the licensing opportunities) and they've partnered with a TV network to have the whole thing televised.

Kinda like Tough Enough meets Making the Band meets the Avengers.

One of the players would be the experienced hero who acts as the technical advisor for the show, and the trainer for the wannabe heroes.

[MarkusDark]

When I first start a new campaign, I have a 'recruitment' drive - usually with delivered invites and adding one or two NPC"s to help round things out. However, as the game goes on and old characters leave and new ones come in, I tend to cut it down a bit. Not because I don't like it but because players will become bored if every other event is a 'recruitment drive' for their latest missing person.

Then again, maybe I just have a high turnover rate for some reason. :P

[Agent X]

I'm running a game this Summer that involves a very elaborate team origin. The characters have already been built. I am putting the finishing touches on the background for the campaign and should have that done by the end of Spring Break. The players will essentially solo in a PBEM through to the beginning of Summer and then boom! Everybody will get together.

The reason for the team to get together is quite simple. Survival of life, limb, and ability to counter the evil plans of various masterminds. The bad guys are getting organized and ganging up on the good guys. Strength in numbers, simple, huh.

[OneSmallGod]

A friend's putting together a "short-run" game (not expected to last too long) whichis based on a Superhero Team whose members are all college students. Well, three members are graduating, and the team's holding try-outs to fill their places.

The GM's instructed each of us to come up with at least 2 "zeroed" characters - their powers and Disads have to balance exactly. If they're ridiculous or assinine, all the better. The idea is, after the three new people are chosen for the team, the ones who didn't make the cut will make their own team out of frustration.

Picture "The Avengers" meets "The Mystery Men" meets "Revenge of the Nerds"...

Some ideas so far:
Kid Transparent - he doesn't really become invisible, just see-thru.
The Bronze Surfer - no superpowers, just a killer tan. (He's also pretty buff, dude!)
Alligator-man - he was bitten by a radioactive alligator. I'm not sure he's gotten any amazing Alligator powers - he may just think he got powers...

[Enforcer84]

Some of the highlights from my AEF campaign for the recruitment.

Godiva: Mental powers based on nudity
White Eagle: Racist superhero
Scorpio 7: Professional wreslter/doc savage clone
Beaverman (i live in oregon): (the embodiment of the State of Oregon)
The Amazing Hypron: A wizard who had his spells based on a book that he kept stapped to his back. The book had a spirit that was the mentor to this apprentice wizard.
Commando: former special forces soldier. Actually was considered but wouldn't come without his 13 year old side kick (and daughter) Scout. Avengers need to be 18.
James Wasburn: (low level brick who felt he should be a superhero but didn't like the idea of dressing up in costumes)
The Amazing Harrier: (man with really slow flight powers; he could hover thought)
The Osprey: (out of shape man in with a flight suit)
Captain Ultra (low level superman clone who faints at the sight of fire)
Fabulous Frogman: (son of a reformed costumed villain trying to use his dad's costume to be a hero)
The Septanarian: (70 year old female martial arts guru)
Hunter: (a "survivalist"; also a paranoid anti-government militia member. Got along well with White Eagle (feeling was not mutual), got his @$$ handed to him by Commando for hitting on Scout)
The Revereand: (an evangelical leader with minor telekinetic and telepathic powers. All self absorbed though)