Many ideas and so little time......

[Spence]

OK, I need help with a dilemma. And where better to turn, than the greatest minds in Herodom. I have been playing hero on and off since the Champions first edition era. I love the systems and have been snapping up the new stuff…. But, because of my career choice, Navy, my gaming time went to nil.
But! I retired from the Navy last year and have started my second and everything has settled down and suddenly I find myself with TIME.

I want to begin a game. It has been about 4 years since I ran last.

And here is my problem. I will be introducing hero to people who have never heard of it. It will be an intro game and I will be making all of the PC's for the first game. I am planning to make the first game a mini-campaign designed to teach the system but also have a good time. When it ends, the players will have the option of keeping the PC's I made, "Adjusting them", or making completely new ones. And then the Campaign part two will start.

But I cannot make up my mind on the exact game to run…. wwwaaaaaaaaaa! :cry: :cry:

First choice:

Pulp

History tells us President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in an effort to better coordinate American Intelligence, created the Office of the Coordinator of Information (COI). In 1941 The President appointed William J Donovan to head the new agency. While the COI did succeed in gathering in many of the governments intelligence apparatus under one umbrella it was largely ineffective. Recognizing this, in 1942 FDR replaced the COI with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS is listed in the history books as America's first true intelligence agency….the books are wrong.

It's 1933, the threats to the free world abound. But the non-existent agents of the non-existent secret service are there to stop them….


Second choice

Four Color Super heroic game.

Heroes are hero, villains are villains. The campaign will revolve around a super hero team with much the same world view as the "Teen Titans" serial, but with a more adult grittiness. The game will concern itself more with the adventure and less with "real world" concerns (unless needed for the plot).

The plot? Simple. Defend the citizens of the "City" from villainous evil.


So which one should I run? Help me decide….

[teh bunneh]

Of course, the real people you should be asking is your players. See if they've got an opinion and go with that.

But if I were one of your players, I'd jump on the Pulp/Secret Agents game. But that's just me. :)

An option if you've got a surplus of ideas is to run one-shot demo games at your FLGS. Try to attract people who normally wouldn't play RPGs in general or HERO in particular and run 'em though some basic adventures. Sometimes you'll get some really good people and they're usually a lot of fun (I recruited my two most recent players that way!). :thumbup:

[Trencher]

Or you could not ask them what type of game they want you to run but what they like best of pulp or superheroes.

I say that the pulp campaing sounds most original.

[Curufea]

Are your players readers of comic books? Or do they have a penchant for Indiana Jones?

But I'll echo the above - I run (as a GM) what my players want. Not only the genre of the game, but the flavour of that genre and the types/power level of their characters are all at the whim of the players.

[Spence]

Well they are actually not "my players". Plus it has been a while since I played. With the FLGS being relatively new and the gamers drifting in from the ether, it strikes me as a good time to get past talking and back into gaming. There are a few D20 games going, but many of the players are in that stage of looking for greener pastures, so I want to get started before the roleplayers of the group get settled back into regular games.

I just got through talking with a friend of mine who is going to play. He suggested that since it had been a while since I actively gamed I should go with the easiest genre for me to run. That would be the four color game. The episodic format of a good supers game makes it ideal to teach the system. I like to complicate things with 2 or 3 unrelated story arcs at the same time. But the nice thing is I can add them as the game goes. Later on down the line I could introduce them to Pulp and the Agency.

[Big Willy]

I would add that if you're introducing the system to newbies, you keep the characters' abilities as straightforward as possible. A single mutant superpower each; matching battlesuits with the same specifications; a set of animal medallions each with its own suite of theme powers; anything to avoid heavy numbercrunching and overcomplicated origin stories.

[Super Squirrel]

Do the Pulp Campaign. :thumbup: