To the streets

[Asperion]

Players like having characters that possess great power. However, the greater power one has means that they need more powerful opponents. It quickly gets to the point where normal people are unable to properly deal with those characters. What happens when criminals gain abilities, technology, or something else that is more than normal law enforcement can deal with? Most established groups like Avengers, JLA, etc deal mostly with more powerful threats and government agencies are ment to deal with characters at that level. This leaves the street level characters with little to no backup that is properly qualified. How is this addressed in your campaign, if at all? 

[LoneWolf]

Unless the campaign is a street level campaign it really does not come up much.  If it is a street level campaign that is the job of the players.  I think most people running a game don’t have an unlimited amount of time so tend to focus on the parts of the world the game affects.  If I am running a street level game it the actions of full 4 color super heroes rarely come up.  If it is a campaign focusing on more powerful characters the street level stuff is mostly in the background and almost never impacts the game.

[Duke Bushido]

I have to agree with Lone Wolf.

 

All of our campaigns-  all of them--  start out at low level.

 

As far as the need for backup and support--

 

Well, _that_ is why you form a team. 

 

(And yes; that is one of many reasons I prefer to start out with 200-250pt Pcs)

 

 

[Grailknight]

Typically, this gets addressed when the campaign is laid out.

 

A very important decision that need to be made by the GM is " How powerful are Supers compared to real world law enforcement and military?" It can be as simple as keeping DC's in the 6-8 range or more complexly by setting some house rules on the interaction of Supers with "real world" technology vs super-tech.

 

Then you must decide on how important campaign events are to the world stage. A JLA/Avengers level team isn't going to be focused on fighting organized crime and the Gang Busters will not typically be the main hope of staving off an alien invasion. Typically, they'll only interact in passing. If both types of groups are present, then the interactions need to be kept clear. One member from that JLA type group might be challenged by a group of the most powerful of the Gang Buster's foes and conversely one weaker JLA/Avengers villain could have a plot foiled by the Gang Busters entire lineup at a high injury cost.

[Scott Ruggels]

IT really is a choice made at the beginning of a campaign, as to how big or small it's going to be. THe campaigns tend not to grow too much over time if they start street level, as experience in Hero tends to make characters more versatile, and durable, rather than more powerful (in general).  Experience points granted tend to be 2 and 3 points a session, and only the most disciplined player sits on them for a full 3 to six months of weekly play to buy another slot on their multi-power, or a new power.  So in general, heroes will make slow moves away from the street level, towards full power.  Also , GMs should remember that villains get experience points, also. THey can grow as well, though not quite at the rate the heroes would. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

It quickly gets to the point where normal people are unable to properly deal with those characters. What happens when criminals gain abilities, technology, or something else that is more than normal law enforcement can deal with?

 

From a comic book perspective, that's how characters like The Confessor, Spider-Man, Batman, Daredevil, The Question etc all were written: they handle this stuff.  From a Champions campaign perspective, I have long wanted to run a police campaign with very low-end heroes as cops on a special squad (like Alphacore, but they're more powerful).  You can do regular police stuff, special situations like SWAT engagements, and low end superheroes as well as mobsters, etc.

[DentArthurDent]

It depends on the group of players.

I've been in games with players who are only interested in how many dice they get to roll. If picking up a building and throwing it injures people then that was the GMs fault.

I’ve also been in games with players whose greatest satisfaction is putting out a fire or helping a family get enough to eat.

Personally, I prefer the later but it’s also fun to roll twenty-eight dice and count the knockback. 

[GDShore]

Back when I started running a campaign (Campions E1) I would collect crme stories (started as a hobby collecting stupid criminal stories) rework the tale and and publish it as a broadsheet. For instance ' a bank robbery in which the robbers shot there way out, I'd give them high-tech weapons and armor and the body count would be way higher ' then the team would choose which set of bad guys to go after. Very quickly the team began hunting up and sending me interseting crime stories one of which lead into a loooong story arc. That one ended with the line "I don't care who they said they were they were violating Canadian airspace". 

[Sketchpad]

11 hours ago, Asperion said:

Players like having characters that possess great power. However, the greater power one has means that they need more powerful opponents. It quickly gets to the point where normal people are unable to properly deal with those characters. What happens when criminals gain abilities, technology, or something else that is more than normal law enforcement can deal with? Most established groups like Avengers, JLA, etc deal mostly with more powerful threats and government agencies are meant to deal with characters at that level. This leaves the street level characters with little to no backup that is properly qualified. How is this addressed in your campaign, if at all? 

 

I was just starting a campaign that was kind of dealing with this. Most large cities have a taskforce dedicated to supervillains, whether at the street level or more. This specialized unit often employ a few superhumans to help offset the their odds a bit. In the campaign I've been working on, the city has been a bit overpowered by villains and gangs. So they sponsor a hero team that works exclusively with the police to help protect the city. Local police powers, access to the police database, and a crash course on law enforcement are the basics that everyone gets, and they answer to a special liaison officer that answers to the police commissioner. What kind of threats do they handle? Pretty much anything the city may throw at them. From villains akin to Spider-Man's rogues, to juiced up gangs, to Kingpins and gang wars, to the occasional Magneto attack. 

 

I agree that, in most cases, setting a street level tone would be my normal go-to for such a game. But I'm trying something different to see how it evolves. 

[Scott Ruggels]

On 3/2/2024 at 10:58 AM, Christopher R Taylor said:

 

From a comic book perspective, that's how characters like The Confessor, Spider-Man, Batman, Daredevil, The Question etc all were written: they handle this stuff.  From a Champions campaign perspective, I have long wanted to run a police campaign with very low-end heroes as cops on a special squad (like Alphacore, but they're more powerful).  You can do regular police stuff, special situations like SWAT engagements, and low end superheroes as well as mobsters, etc.

Looking forward to the write ups from this, if you do it.

[Christopher R Taylor]

I can't run games any more so

[Scott Ruggels]

Very sorry to hear that.