Superhero Bases

[Duke Bushido]

Keeping in mind that I dobt do sarcasm-  I just dont have my reading glasses handy so going through the whole thread again would be difficult:

 

Are you not the same person who told me that your bases were not places to get attacked?

 

The avatar looks right; apologies if you aren't.

[Spence]

7 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Two things:

 

1) I am not against bases.  I am against charging for them, seeing as how they offer little that isn't available to a superhero via some other method (Spideman using the lab at college or at some internship; superheores using Star Labs or working with local agencies, etc).  The value added versus the points spent just isn't there.  If you want a base, fine; have a base.

 

2) the last several examples from the source material seem to support the idea that a base is both set dressing for where the story takes place _and_ attacked with some regularity.

 

 

 

1)

A base can be many things and have points with value. 

A lab can give everyone on the team a "science".

Stark had an AI which could do things without a PC being active on the project and his "base" was obviously just his lab and apartment vice a hidden fortress.

Some "bases" are just locations for labs and workshops that are simply not obvious rather than concealed or hidden, though the could be.  TV Arrows base was this way.

Some bases can be fortified such as Sanctum in some comics or the Fantastic Fours base which got attacked regularly back in the day.  Haven't read comics much since the early 90's so I can't say about now.

 

2)

Some source material may.  But I can remember plenty of "bases" that were never discovered or attacked. 

A base CAN be a source of plot to include an attack or simply the kidnapping of a DNPC or a burglery/data theft. 

 

Slightly off topic, but I can recall threads where people were adamant that the capture of any player character was the height of bad role-play to the point they enforced the banning of GM's if they had it in their game.  And yet the imprisonment of the Hero or someone close to the Hero is a staple of 90% of adventure novels from swashbuckling to spies to westerns to superheroes to sword swinging knights.   A captured PC opens a huge number of dramatic paths to plot. 

Why are they against it? Probably they had a bad experience and therefore all games are evil if it happens. 

 

If all the GM can come up with for a plot when the PC's have a base is regular attacks, then the GM really needs a remedial class in how to create adventures that take all of the Disadvantages/Complications that the PC have into account.   When I ran a full time Champs game the issue was never finding a plot that was triggered by a Disad/Comp.  The issues was too many possibilities to use them all. 

 

3 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Keeping in mind that I dobt do sarcasm

 

I have my doubts about sarcasm too. 

 

 

I made a funny

 

 

 

 

 

[Echo3Niner]

To base, or not to base, THAT is the question...

 

I'm all 'bout that base, 'bout that base, no trouble...

 

(Couldn't help myself...)

[dmjalund]

PCs must pay for their bases, because freebasing is illegal

[archer]

1 hour ago, dmjalund said:

PCs must pay for their bases, because freebasing is illegal

 

When it doesn't just blow up in your face....

[BoloOfEarth]

As a GM, I think it's a *great* idea to give the heroes a base for free.  

 

Of course, what the GM giveth, the GM can taketh away...

 

- - - - - -

 

My players have built many bases over the course of many Champions campaigns.  They've had:

• A building inside the city (known to the public)
• A building inside the city (kept secret from the public)
• A refurbished oil rig moved to a few miles offshore from New York City
• A remote volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean
• A secret base (under a high school) that belonged to an NPC superhero team who disappeared in the late 1940s.

Some they paid points for, others which were given to them free of charge.**  I think most of them were attacked by villains at one point or another.  But mostly, they used them for training and lab work.  

 

The "volcano lair" (the heroes' name for it) actually put in an appearance in a different campaign, when those heroes went there to figure out why the other hero team had disappeared.  They found some vital clues there in their former team's labs, which helped them unravel the mystery.  

 

** I've done the same with team vehicles.  Two different hero teams captured vehicles (one a VIPER jet with a cloak, the other a small starship) and kept them for themselves, with the GM's blessing.  At some point each vehicle was temporarily stolen by someone else -- and boy, did the players gripe and complain!  I responded, "I'm sorry, how many points did you lose?  None?  Well, gee whiz..."