My Supers Campaign became a Magic/Dimension campaign...

[Watchman-BN]

I could use some suggestions from you experienced GM's.

My current RP group consists of experience Hero Gamers. When we finished our last (200 pt super-spy) campaign, we decided to do a more traditional, 400pt Supers campaign to take advantage of the great supplements (shameless plug) such as Champions and Millenium City.

When the players designed their characters--all interesting, as I expected--they didn't create what you'd call a traditional superhero team. Think PrimalForce or Shadow Cabinet if you ever read those shortlived DC books.

I need some help directed adventures that suit the group. I'm not really willing to have them re-do their characters in a significant way because they're cool characters with roleplay potential.

Here's the rundown:
-Pallisade: most traditional 'super'. She has a Telekinesis suit that gives her great strength, force field, and TK. The roleplay "hook" is that the company that designed the suit watches her very closely and... may not be on the up and up in their motives for designing (and using her as guinea pig for) the suit.

-Scion: darkest character. 1/2 angel, 1/2 demon (nevermind the theology there), she is hunted by both Light and Dark for her ability to tip the scales for either side. She is 400 years old, has something of a deathwish, but her powers (magical brick with some lifesupport/regen) make her effectively immortal.

-Kindle: Dimension hopping mage from another world. He has the power to animate items (summoning & multipower) plus a power pool that takes a long time and specific components to change. The Pool is mostly for story effects. Kindle is "totally unfamiliar with this world". Cats terrify him because of experiences with specific feline creatures in another world. He has a number of obscure knowledge skills (Dragon mating rituals, and the like).

-Empyrean: Was a young 4-color hero from earth. He was a martial artist with some energy projector powers, but spent 20+ years enslaved and/or fighting the enslaving race in another dimension, only to return 1 day after he left. He's returned to this world twenty years older and wiser, with his former masters chasing him, and, because he returned to Earth, turning their conqueror's eye on his homeworld. He struggles with having 4color heroic psychs in a war-like situation of kill or be killed (and the guilt of realizing his return to home may cause the Earth to be lost to galactic invaders).

So: 3 out of 4 have origins tied to other dimensions/planes. 2 of 4 are highly magical.

I can't see them having a Hall of Justice(tm). In fact, it's getting harder (in the 4 sessions we've done) to justify them all being in the same place at the same time, working as a team.

Ideas for adventures and Story Arcs that would tie all their lives together would be welcomed. Villains and settings from the Hero Game supplements can be assumed.

**edited for grammar & spelling

[Hermit]

Give them a base that is a 'cornerstone' or 'keystone' to our dimension. Protecting it can be among their many duties, and will give them a reason to stay together.

[Blackjack]

I really like the 'cornerstone' idea. Perhaps having a powerful but somehow limited NPC bringing them together for a unified purpose (your campaign), complete with providing them a place to gather, plan, or be summoned would work.
I see a cosmic version of Mr. Weatherly, or the voice on the tape ("Your mission, should you choose to accept it...") In genre terms, you have the Watcher, or even Professor X from Marvel comics, both of whom served a similiar function for the Avengers (from time to time) or the X-Men.

For me, getting the PC's to know that 'the game is afoot' is sometimes the hardest part of the plot. Having such an NPC could help...

[Agent X]

You could go with a Charlie character. There is a mysterious figure who has assembled them but uses a second to communicate with them. This character could be comic potential, creepy, whatever.

[Watchman-BN]

The base as rift/dimensional nexus might be the ticket.

I don't really want to do a Charlie character because I've done that sort of thing before. I did a very manipulative character--called Watchman--that guided the public and private lives of heroes for a 2 year campaign. It was fun, but it's time for something else.

Here's a concern with the cornerstone idea. Ever seen Smallville (aka Freak of the Week)? Sitting on a "hellmouth" can also lead to repetitive "who's after the cornerstone this week?" issues. It's a good idea, but I don't want to cut off conversation if there are other ideas.

Anyone ever tied a diverse group together with an NPC set (Superhero 1's brother is the boyfriend of Superhero 2's sister)? With a common hunted (who *thinks* the 4 supers are a team, even if they don't consider themselves that)?

[Lord Liaden]

The dimensional nexus is a classic element of this type of game, but don't forget that such a nexus can work both ways, and that can lead to many other plots than just defending it. Taking the classic mansion/ "sanctum" as an example, doors can lead to distant locations on Earth or on other worlds or dimensions, allowing the characters to travel to interesting locations quickly. Mirrors or paintings may give glimpses of distant or future events, prompting the PCs to investigate. Beings of various natures may slip through into our reality: hostile, benign or simply mischievous. Portions of the base may have various effects on some or all of the characters due to forces from other worlds flowing through them: draining or boosting magic powers within them, healing or resurrecting people (probably under unusual circumstances, like at precise stellar alignments), or affecting the minds or souls of people who enter.

[Hermit]

Perhaps the cornerstone/base is in some ways, aware. When endangered, it 'calls' to the four of them, but it can not truly direct or order them. It has no higher agenda (at least none that we mere mortals could understand) than preventing itself from being abused.

That way, the PCs could feel safe leaving it from time to time since it can always give them a call?

[KA.]

Originally posted by Hermit
Perhaps the cornerstone/base is in some ways, aware. When endangered, it 'calls' to the four of them, but it can not truly direct or order them. It has no higher agenda (at least none that we mere mortals could understand) than preventing itself from being abused.

That way, the PCs could feel safe leaving it from time to time since it can always give them a call?

Love this idea! So now I want to tack something on to it!:D

If the "gate" is aware, and you can manage to get them to defend it once, it could "lock on" to the members of the "team".

After that, if it felt threatened, it could just Teleport them to it. No asking, no signaling, just "boom" you're there.

Since it is not really sentient, there would be no way to "reason" with it.

Like a baby duck, it would just imprint on whoever protected it first.

You would not want to use this for every adventure, since it would become obnoxious, but it would be a good thing to have in the background for those times when you needed to get the team together without a lot of fuss.

You could also have the gate "help" the PC's once in a while.

Not anything they had any control over, but sort of like a Luck roll.

If someone was about to actually get killed, the gate might bring them to itself, or send them somewhere it considered safe. (A hospital, The middle of the Sahara, Another Dimension?)

KA

[zornwil]

Great ideas already in this thread. I would just add that they could also have a very above-board benefactor, but one that appeals to each of their individual priorities.

A great way to get characters to bond is put them into a crisis. In real life people often, if not usually, do; in super-games it's much the same. Present a grave situation that very suddenly overtakes them and requires them working together to get out of it.

Hook up their enemies (but don't overdo it), giving them a cause to stay joined and together more often.

Ask the players for hooks; they will probably come up with cool ideas. I like it if something like 2 duos of the players in a 4-6 game campaign have their PCs have some sort of linked background, it does some fo the work "for" you and moreover gives a better sense of reality to the campaign start. (It may be too late for this one given you've already started; you could, though, have at least 1 link set up like this wherein 2 characters find out they are related or they have a close mutual friend or such).

Give the characters an NPC they all love/hate. That NPC is a walking plot hook, so they are interested in him, but he amuses and/or irks them equally, probably a sort of asshole who may even not like supers but "needs" them for whatever reason. I've often done this and it seems to work well; the PCs joke about the character or agree about how to handle him and start acting more in concert and develop some in-jokes and the like.