Help with Plot

[sojdev]

Hello all,

It's been 10 years since I ran a Champions game and 2 years since I've run any game at all. So recently I jumped into running a game of Champions with my fiance and one of my friends.

The first night was a test run to get the players familiar with their characters and to get us all a bit more familiar with the system.

The end result was a reconnaisance mission by Calibre (who is hunted by VIPER) and Myst (an unknown telepath and telekinetic mutant). Myst was to investigate a supposed Nest and get any information about an ambassador that had been kidnapped and was rumored to be held there.

Calibre, being hunted by VIPER because of his power suit which he stole from them, was checking the place out to make sure they weren't after him.

Neither hero knew of each other until they met at the warehouse district. They quickly teamed up but alerted the agents inside who attempted to flee with the ambassador. They were eventually caught and the ambassador rescued though Calibre nearly killed him. Some of the agents managed to escape.

Myst was not to be seen and her mentor was hired to keep the kidnapping of the ambassador a secret. However, the police arrived and managed to get the ambassador to a hospital in time to save him, so now the news is all over the fact that the ambassador was in San Diego while the president was visiting and noone knew about it.

So, that was the first night and now I'm working on using this as a springboard for the rest of this story. I went and rolled up some plot items from the Plot Generator in the Champions book. I'm still a bit rusty on this whole thing and I was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers for what I rolled up?

So without further ado, here is what I rolled up as well as some of the known cast and crew:

1. Antagonists
a. Invaders
i. A force set on conquest or destruction is planning a mission. This may be a mission of infiltration, subversion, kidnapping, sabotage or assault. They may be aliens, foreign nationals, terrorists, or representatives of a secret society.
2. Revelation of Menace
a. Ongoing Investigation or Mundane Mystery
i. If a PC is engaged in an ongoing investigation, his search unearths clues about the upcoming event, even if it is not directly related to his investigation. Alternatively, one or more PC’s, enjoying the normal Secret ID lifestyle, stumble across some things that are “Just Not Right”, pointing him toward the problem.
3. Events of the Story
a. Phase One
i. The authorities refuse to cooperate with the PCs (they may believe their tactics wrong, seek them on criminal charges, or the like).
ii. The character’s plans keep being leaked to the enemy; the characters must find the mole in their organization, spy devices in their quarters, or whatever is causing the leak.
b. Phase Two
i. The character’s plot/tactic completely fails; characters are driven into retreat/captured (if captured, must escape or survive deathtrap)
ii. A character is poisoned, cursed or otherwise weakened
c. Phase Three
i. The characters must hurry to a specific location, perhaps in competition with a rival/opposed group after the same objective
ii. A partial or complete solution to the problem involves an object (magical item, invention, or the like) held by secondary antagonists; the PCs must take the object by trade, force or coercion
4. Optional Twists
a. Supposed Enemy is Really a Friend
i. One of the forces the heroes have been fighting turns out to be working in their best interest.
5. Cast of Characters
a. PC Heroes
i. Myst: Telpath and Telekinetic mutant. Currently under review for joining the Vindicators
1. Secret ID: Anne Cerbu, Librarian
ii. Calibre: Power armored Trick ammo specialist
1. Secret ID: Alec Rosenblit, freelance reporter
b. NPC Heroes
i. Vindicators: Secret hero organization that works for a price
1. Grid: Power armored muscle man and professional rival of Calibre
2. Inferno: Unsubtle fire based energy projector
3. Archer: Archery based tactician and mission team leader
4. Mr. Chen: Leader and Founder of the Vindicators and mentor to Myst. Telepath and Clairsentient. Proprietor of a small Chinese restaurant in China Town.
c. DNPC’s
i. Josh Keyser: Private Investigator with an obsession for tracking superhumans. Childhood friend of Myst.
ii. Mao Chen: Technical genius and son to Mr. Chen. Responsible for building the Vindicators underground base.
d. Contacts
i. Nick Hanline: Power systems technician and resource for Calibre’s Secret ID. Currently works for his own TV Repair shop.
ii. Bob Henderson: Editor in Chief of the Daily Californian and Calibre’s Secret ID boss.
e. Relatives
i. Chris Cerbu: Myst’s brother and game programmer
f. Significant Others
i. Jason Yarnell: Friend and co-worker of Chris’ and romantic interest of Myst
ii. Stephanie Iles: Chris’ girlfriend
g. Villains
i. Pulsar
ii. VIPER Agents
h. Villainous Organizations
i. VIPER
ii. US Government
i. Good Guy Organizations
i. UNTIL
ii. San Diego Police Department

[Redmenace]

Well you've got enough for the rest of the opening adventure I'd say. I'm not sure what would be helpful so I'll toss out some stuff.


1.) Viper is up to something, apparently planning a military scale assault, I'm suggesting you keep it to viper so as to not overcomplicate things

Decide what form that's gonna take
ex.s

Wipe out a local superteam

Kidnap the president or a multibillionair CEO etc.

Overthrow a third world country, the local base being the staging area

Viper is gonna knock off a military base or National Guard Armory

Viper is facing competition from another agency, Argent, Raven or an upstart faction from within Viper, a gangwar is about to erupt


2.) The Players find out about it, maybe someone defects from Viper and contacts them, They rescue this defector from a viper assassin whos pursuing them, let the assassin get away. The defector is actually loyal to Viper and is setting them up for an ambush.

2.a.) The Police don't believe them, maybe they have been infiltrated maybe they don't trust supers in general. That's fine it lets the Pcs be the stars as they should be.

Becouse of Bugging or a turncoat defector, whatever, the Pcs attempt to stop the problem goes over badly, maybe a Viper ambush hits them premptively or they are just ready for the pcs when they attack.

Combine the capture deathtrap and poisoning into a single event, maybe a bioweapon that disables the heroes but doesn't kill them

Either way they are given an antidote or let out of their cells by the "assassin" who was trying to kill the defector. The story and loyalties get straightened out here. They find out what Vipers goal is and have to cpmandeer something from the uncooperative authorities to counter Viper say an antidote to the bioweapon.

End with a big smackdown.


I realise that this is probobly way off the mark but maybe you can glean something from it.

[sojdev]

Actually this is pretty cool. It actually ties in with some of the stuff I came up with last night. However, a supervillain I created a long time ago is the main bad guy and VIPER is a grey area "good guy" in this case.

The Enemy (as the supervillain is known) wishes to keep the political turmoil in the middle east going as a distraction. He has planted agents throughout the world in various political situations. Some of his more notable agents are Saddam and Ben Ladin. In this episode, the Israeli ambassador is an agent and is assigned to sabotage the secret council between the President, himself and the Palestinian ambassador.

The constant warring keeps the news reporters on more "important" topics whilst he continues testing a mutagen that he intends to release through the worlds water supplies. This mutagen will place normal humans into a psycho-receptive state that The Enemy will be able to take advantage of, with his mind controling devices located in several satellites. If a mutant gets injected with the mutagen, they will slowly lose CON, STR and BOD until they finally die.

Another of The Enemies agents is the CEO of Taggert Shipping and is one of the few people that have the antedote. Taggert Shipping is being utilized to transport the mutagen across the world upon its completion.

The last major agent is Mr. Chen (Myst's mentor and the leader of the Vindicators). Mr. Chen has long been working for The Enemy ever since his wife was slain by VIPER during a terrorist attack. The Enemy made Mr. Chen a deal he couldn't refuse and Mr. Chen has been recruiting heroes to fight VIPER in San Diego, ever since. Mr. Chen has been utilizing the Vindicators to subvert any VIPER activities while keeping The Enemy informed of their actions.

VIPER has learned of what The Enemy plans to do and, being normal humans themselves, want to let The Enemy proceed with his plans. VIPER sees this as a win-win situation since they are supplying the various terrorist orginazations with military hardware. However, they want to get the antidote so that they can make their agents immune to the effects of the mutagen and then take out The Enemy after its release to the world.

Steven Taggert has been utilizing Josh Keyser to keep tabs on any superheroes in San Diego which should place him in some significantly bad situations to draw Myst into protecting him. Mr. Taggert happens to really like Josh and plans to bring him into the fold once all hell breaks lose. Mr. Taggert is the most elligible bachelor in San Diego but he is also gay. Josh is straight but Taggert has his hopes.

Meanwhile, Mysts brother, Chris and his business partner, Jason are working on a technology deal for their game company that will make VR gaming a reality. What they don't know is that their technology partner, Vision Technology, is actually a front for The Enemy in developing a VR device that will be the receiver for his mind control devices.

VIPER has been planning their attack on The Enemy for sometime and had constructed a prototype battlesuit that would give them an edge against him. This prototype was stolen and they want it back. Calibre is the one that stole it and has no intentions of giving it back.
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So that's the back story that I came up with for the overall campaign. My goal is to make this last for a while, so now I'm going to see if I can't work your idea's into a section of this overarching story.

What do you all think?

[Captain Obvious]

I don't see where, in your description of events, VIPER comes off as good guys....

Your story looks pretty good. If you want to stretch it out for a while, you can throw in unrelated villain rampages and short adventures here and there, and come back to the main storyline later.

Overall, it looks solid...I'm not sure what kind of help you're asking for....

[sojdev]

My goals for VIPER are to help the heroes defeat The Enemy and possibly be a secondary source for the antidote.

The feedback I'm getting is very helpful in giving me alternatives and secondary idea's. I posted this after a long day at the offcie and was brain fried. After stewing on it over night that is what I've come up with. =)

[pinecone]

Well the bad guy turns out good hook and viper says Viper super retirment plan to me ,run Viper as baddys pretending to be helpful, they betray the heros, bad guy jones turns coat (possably a romance hook).......