Restricted power origins campaigns

[RavenX99]

The Champions universe, like Marvel and DC and the Forgotten Realms, is a kitchen sink of ideas... super science, mutants, magic, aliens, beings from alternate dimensions, you name it, it's all in there.

 

Have you ever run or played in a campaign setting where the source of superpowers was limited to a single source?  All mutants, all from an alien virus (Wildcards), all super-science (super soldiers, cyborgs), all psychic manifestations, etc?  (Scott Bennie's Gestalt setting always fascinated me.)

 

My wife ran one of my favorite campaigns with an all-cyborgs theme.... there were no innate superpowers, only cyborgs and robots.  I find the constraints really satisfying, as the world and story having a solid thematic basis really helps things hold together.  You can have really great adventures in a kitchen sink, but I feel the constraints make it easier to achieve when everyone is on-board with the idea.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yeah my Golden Age game all powers came from a single source (magic and Asgardian fruit).  Its very restrictive, in some ways, but in others it makes storytelling work better and the overall campaign has more cohesion and focus.

[Grailknight]

Yes, this idea can work and work well. Giving everyone a common origin, makes it simpler to weave plots together. And it makes less work for the GM on organizations.  Plus, single can still be pretty broad in scope.

 

It can also give some justification to fear by the population because these supers are different from the norm. All mages? They're after our souls! All cyborgs? They're going to turn us into spare parts! All mutants? We'll be replaced! Aliens? They'll enslave us and then eat us! It's much easier to fuel one strong conspiracy than lots of small ones.

[RavenX99]

2 hours ago, Grailknight said:

It can also give some justification to fear by the population because these supers are different from the norm.

I've been watching the entire X-Men movie franchise in like 2 weeks, and it really made me think about this... in the movies, there are no other supers, just mutants.  In the comics, the "mutant panic" didn't feel so real because there were so many other supers... "Cap'n America and the Avengers and that sorcerer dude are the good guys, but them damn muties, they need to be locked up!"  It's a lot more believable when it's just "damn muties" and _none_ of them are considered heroes until the shift in Dark Phoenix.

 

So I really think this kind of focus can mean a lot if you want to explore something like "mutant panic" without diluting it.  Or like my cyborg game, CHROME... the whole focus was megacorps and misuse of technology and using people as tools.  (Because the cyborgs are all "owned" by somebody.)  I was reading some commentary on the Gestalt universe, and how Bennie diluted the concept by giving players so many options to have powers without being a gestalt.  And this is one of the dangers of such a narrow focus... you really need all your players on-board with the concept.  Because either you're pushing them into a concept they didn't really want to play, or you're diluting the world concept by letting players create exceptions.  And I've learned when you let players create exceptions, over half your players will want to be an exception, because so many players are looking to be "more special" than the other special people.  (I once had 5 players agree, with no objections, to all play wood elves from the same village with no contact with the outside world... exactly 1 player gave me what I asked for.  I got an outcast who was not allowed to interact with the village, one raised by humans not knowing they were an elf, one who had left the village to apprentice to a human fighter, and a human who wanted to be an elf.  They were all interesting concepts, but they broke the fundamental nature of what the campaign was supposed to be about.)

[Duke Bushido]

I am actually preparing one now.

 

All supers are the children or grandchildren of alien abductees.

 

As there has been no "alien contact" as of yet, ....

 

 

 

[RavenX99]

1 hour ago, Duke Bushido said:

All supers are the children or grandchildren of alien abductees.

That sounds pretty cool.  Have you gotten by-in from all the players?  Wondering about the setup...  have powers been popping up for some time, or is it a sudden world-wide phenomenon?  I think the latter would be interesting to play... the whole "the world has never seen superpowers, and now you're in the middle of how it reacts when dangerous individuals suddenly appear."

 

[Scott Ruggels]

Oh definitely. We did a brief "All Powered Armored Suits, All the time, and though the campaign was short it had a unified feel, like a Television show. It was a lot of fun. Cold War, so it was the U.S. Versus the Commies, and the occasional villain group or malign corporation.

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

I've been watching the entire X-Men movie franchise in like 2 weeks, and it really made me think about this... in the movies, there are no other supers, just mutants.  In the comics, the "mutant panic" didn't feel so real because there were so many other supers

 

Yeah there's a reason that the X-Men comics generally felt like they were not a part of the Marvel universe at large.  Although the mutant menace thing was not really a major factor in most of the stories, it only really works if mutants are the standout changes rather than all the other origin stories and people with powers.  So if you want to do that kind of paranoid, enemy of the people kind of campaign, it works best to isolate things, I think.

[Dr.Device]

I ran two campaigns set in a world where, in 2000, a quarter mile radius sphere of nothingness, dubbed "The Void" appeared just South of downtown Austin. Many people were caught in it when it appeared. Those who made their own way out (including the PCs) ended up with powers (which the PCs used to rescue most of the folks who couldn't make it out on their own). As the campaign progressed, I did open up origins a little bit, because the Void sort of broke the world. Eventually there was magic. The second campaign was focused on a team that was assembled to deal with otherworldly incursions, and ended up with a couple of members that were there because of those incursions.

 

[RavenX99]

6 minutes ago, Dr.Device said:

Those who made their own way out (including the PCs) ended up with powers

Cool... so did you roleplay through that event, starting with PCs that didn't have powers yet?  Or was it just background?

[Duke Bushido]

The world has seen exactly two "abnormally talented" individuals in the past, but not quite super-human.  They have been gone (killed in wartime) for a couple of generations at this point, and really only exist as historical clues for the characters to either discover or miss as they see fit.

 

I have only run this past two players thus far, as it is in-progress.  Both seem interested.

 

We will be doing "tiered" power structures, which is to say that there will be three options for how many starting points /disads you want (we play 2e: Disadplications bite hard because to get higher points, you take more of them.

 

The setting lore for the three levels (again, to be discovered by players) is essentially: one abducted ancestor is level1.   Level 1 is primarily increased characteristics, though a minor power may occur.

 

One abductee ancestor _on each side_ (ie, one in the lineage or each parent) is level 2.  This is primarily powers, but no characterisitcs will  exceed maxims.

 

One actual "talented" individual as a parent (it is possible to have a power or trait and never actually know it: very few modern people ever have to _really push_ their strength, or run from certain death, etc) and one adbductee or talented person in the lineage from the other parent yields level 3, which is traditional "super hero" mix of both powers and characteristics.

 

Powers (and certain characteristics may; havent decided yet) have some sort of "control roll;" this will weigh heavier on level 3 characters, obviously.  This is an enforced power limitation that can be bought off with experience, etc. as can any other such limitations.

 

The characters will, in the initial session, be being "helped" individulally by various organizations, as they have found themselves with these abilities and very poor control.

 

I have not decided on the organizations, though clearly, with perhaps one exception, the goal is to control the  character and to to recreate the abilities.  I am leaning heavily- if I have enough players commit- to having _one_ organization genuinely interested in helping the character because he needs help, and then of course, the things to learn are too good to pass up.

 

Level three, having the most disadplications already, will have hanging over them that a small amount of their character points will not be spent by them, but by me, at inopportune times (I am thinking 10 to fifteen points for a 300 pt character, but I will get that sussed out as I go).

 

During the game, EP will be rewarded more-or-less "by the book," meaning that characters of higher starter power level will likely earn experience a bit slower-- that whole "more powerful / less powerful" thing.  I am okay with this, as it gives tier 1 and tier 2 characters a bit of lead to 'catch up,' so to speak.  

 

Again, I am not entirely sure how it will shake out in the final form, but that is the preliminary.  I am thinking of mandatory Hunters-  the "helpful organizations" from which they have escaped (save the altruistic one, if I decide do include it.  The idea is that, should the players not figure it out within... Say, four sessions or so-  then rhe altruistic organization dumps the character they are helping, having seen a pattern of talented people popping up and "disappearing."  (I may throw in a government angle, but I am always leery of such a thing: realistically, PCs do not have a snowball's chance against a national government determined to capture and hold them or otherwise "solve" the problem).  So if the PCs havent figured it out, the one group will info dump somethinf to the effect of "you have to go!  You can't stay here!  It is too dangerous for _all_ of us!  You were never here; you don't know us; we don't know you, but listen: you are not alone!  There are other like you!  There are othera like you, amd we have reason to bekieve that you are _all_ in danger.  Find them.  Find the others; you are stronger together!  Stay hidden, but stay together!"

 

Or something like that.  As a sort of "proof of the pudding (and to add a layer of mystery), when they do meet up and befin to work together, I am thinking of just dumping five character points onto them each time they pick up a new someone as part of their team.

 

Then there will be a three or four sessions of "on the run" (and the altruistic organization will be a closed door to them at this point; they won't find a trace of it anywhere) and from their, I would like to work in a couple of complete arcs of actual superhero / secret identity / colorful costumes stuff, with honest to goodness super villains (whose powers have the same source, of course).  I _may_ let one or two of the villains have ties to one or more od the organizations the PCs were being "helped" by (and probably will, if the players want to chase those threads).

 

Hopefully at least _one_ of the characters will have discussed "my nutty grandmother who is in an,institution because she believes she was abducted by aliens, which should trigger  a cascade of "alien abduction?  Wierd!  Me, too!", as I intend to present framework histories (not complete backstories, but "interesting details about your life," (they should not suspect anything, as I have done rhis before- not regularly, but as a means to pushing them toward bexoming a cohesive team-- you all fought in the same war on the same,front-- that sort of thing, and just to keep them grounded, I have always thrown in an offbeat detail or two "just for fun.")

 

And just about the time they are really adapting to this superhero thing-- remember they are the first od their kind; this world will not even have them as fiction, if I can work that in without giving away anything)-

 

About the time they get used to it, there is an en masse attempt to take them down, durinf which time they will winnow down the strength of the secret agencies and perhaps even rhe military---

 

And the aliens will return.

 

And that is where I am stumped.  Why?  Why are the aliens back?  I would like do avoid the bulk of rhe tropes, obviously, but that leaves me nothing but "hey, we accidentally vreated auper beings, but son't worry!  We would like to set that right," and frankly, I dont like that.  I suspect the reason that the teopes have become tropes ("we are here to harvest our bioweapons;" "we need to run some more tests;" "why jave you not,taken over this world?  You were programmed to do so!" etc have all become,tropes is because they work reasonably well as-is.  Still, I would like do,come,up with something just a bit,off the beaten path, but still ominous to,crescendo,what I see as,a,three-year campaign.

 

 

[Dr.Device]

4 hours ago, RavenX99 said:

Cool... so did you roleplay through that event, starting with PCs that didn't have powers yet?  Or was it just background?

 

We roleplayed it. The characters knew each other and were on the scene together when the Void appeared. They each had to find their own way out, or most of the way out, though. Basically, they roleplayed manifesting their powers as a way of getting themselves out.  

[RavenX99]

1 hour ago, Dr.Device said:

 

We roleplayed it. The characters knew each other and were on the scene together when the Void appeared. They each had to find their own way out, or most of the way out, though. Basically, they roleplayed manifesting their powers as a way of getting themselves out.  

I'm trying to imagine this as a convention scenario, how players would react to it. Sounds like a lot of fun.

[pawsplay]

It wasn't Hero, but White Wolf's Aberrant is set up like this. Essentially, everyone is a quantum-powered "nova." You could optionally play a really talented human, who would be toast in a real high-powered fight but might be skilled and useful in their own way, or a not-quite-as-limited "psiad" with traditional psychic abilities (who was generally not recognized as being different from a nova).

 

I did try to run a Wildcards game in Hero once, which I think would have been great, but it just never got off the ground.

[RavenX99]

5 hours ago, pawsplay said:

White Wolf's Aberrant is set up like this.

I own a lot of Aberrant material... never played it, but thought about using the setting with Hero.  Also thought about Wildcards, but Wildcards is so close to "anything goes" that it wouldn't look all that different from a lot of other superhero RPG.  (Modular Man being a good example of how far they stretched the idea of "alien virus gives you super powers".)  So I kind of see Wildcards as being that "narrow focus, but the GM has given you so many 'outs' you don't really need to adhere to the theme too strongly.  Plus you can play aliens."

[LoneWolf]

I ran a magic based game set in the 1920’s.  Even though all the characters were magic based there was enough diversity that the game worked really well.   A lot of the characters were spell casters of some sort but there was also a dragon, a character who was cursed with immortality and a fey who was banished to our world and stuck in the form of a cat.  

 

One of the characters was playing a Dorian Grey type character and was the best Hero and Villain in the game.  He had split himself into good and evil and for the most part kept the evil locked up in a painting.  But occasionally the evil side took over.  He had an accidental change when knocked out.  The most memorable thing he ever did was to summon up a school of Holy Piranha to eat the aquatic ghouls the party had to get past.  
 

[Gauntlet]

1 hour ago, LoneWolf said:

I ran a magic based game set in the 1920’s.  Even though all the characters were magic based there was enough diversity that the game worked really well.   A lot of the characters were spell casters of some sort but there was also a dragon, a character who was cursed with immortality and a fey who was banished to our world and stuck in the form of a cat.  

 

One of the characters was playing a Dorian Grey type character and was the best Hero and Villain in the game.  He had split himself into good and evil and for the most part kept the evil locked up in a painting.  But occasionally the evil side took over.  He had an accidental change when knocked out.  The most memorable thing he ever did was to summon up a school of Holy Piranha to eat the aquatic ghouls the party had to get past.  
 

 

That was a Great Game, you should run it again.