How many of you have GM'd "Alt Earth" scenarios?

[Trebuchet]

The various "Alt Earth" (Thanks, Farik!) threads have got me thinking: How many of you GMs have actually run such a scenario/campaign in Champions?

 

I have, just once, back in the late 80's. Our hero team, the Sentinels, had just finished narrowly defeating a supervillain and myriad allies on his moon base. The heroes gathered at the base's teleporter for the trip back to our base in San Francisco and threw the switch. Our heroes materialized on a street near their secret base in downtown SF, and were promptly attacked by a 30' tall Minuteman robot proclaiming they were in violation of the Superhuman Control Act. Our heroes promptly smashed the robot, but not before it summoned assistance. The heroes decided to get back to HQ to figure out what was going on. Imagine their surprise when they got to their "secret" base and found a life-sized bronze statue of themselves out in the front courtyard with a plaque: "In Memory of the Sentinels, who fell in battle trying to defend Earth. May 6, 1988" (That day's date) and then proceeded to list all of the PC's names and their Secret IDs!

 

Turned out in another parallel dimension that after they had all died on the moon, Congress had passed the Superhuman Control Act and authorized the creation of the Minuteman robots to control paranormal activity. Shortly thereafter the Golden Avenger had then proclaimed himself President in a military coup, and his Silver Avengers regional governors in an American police state. All superhuman activities were forbidden except by the government, and paranormals of all types had been apprehended and placed in a secret concentration camp for eventual "reeducation" or extermination.

 

So our heroes had to figure out where the other paranormals were being held, break in and rescue them (hero and villain alike) and overthrow the Golden Avenger's dictatorship.

[Chuckg]

This Golden Avenger was Kaufman, I hope? I /like/ DJ.

[Bengal]

We had one alternate-timeline adventure, and that was quite enough for us! As it turns out, the team's doofy 600+ point brick (the rest of us were built on 250) was the dictator, something along the lines of Age of Apocolypse now that I think about it, and it was up to us to overthrow him and help the people. My character ended up rescuing a young girl who ended up as his sidekick and ward back in the main timeline. He was stuck in court half the time trying to get her declared a real person, getting her citizenship, and adopting her. The other half of the time, he was trying to rescue his over-eager sidekick. It was such a headache, I wanted to kill her myself.

[winterhawk]

After 5th Edition came out, I created a new campaign. The 4th Edition campaign we were playing became 'Earth 4'. After some initial setup with some attacks by agents with insignia similar to an old PC ("Really, I just liked the design..."), the were transported to 'Earth 4 minus', a world were their old characters had taken over.

[Dr. Anomaly]

I've done a LOT of alternate-timeline scenarios, but I've also been GMing Champions for almost 15 years. (It sure doesn't seem like that long!)

 

Let's see...

 

I've done a "dark world" adventure where the heroes linked up with the "villains" of that world (actually underground freedom fighters opposing a totalitarian regime and its 'super hero' enforcers). You should have seen the looks on the player's faces when their PCs met that world's supergenius leader of the rebels, that world's last, best hope...the noble Foxbat! (and then later on they met Professor Preserver, an ancient scientest permanently grafted into a suit of life-support armor [ie Dr. Destroyer as a good guy]) Oh, yeah, the Grond they ran in to had an INT of 23, by the way...

 

I've done a "Fuzzy Animal" world scenario for the Legion of Super-Heroes game I run. Hidden Dragon (the PC), a martial artist with invisibility and a few other useful powers, got tossed into a world where there was no such creature as humans, and her counterpart really was a dragon. The Legion in that world included members like Brainy-Quack 5, Mon-Eel, Shadow Lassie, Sun Bear, Colossal Boar, Phantom Gull, and so on. I played it serious, not for laughs. The major threat during that scenario was when Earth was invaded by Pulsecat Stargrave and the Duck Circle.

 

For that same Legion game, I'm in the process of running a scenario in a gender-reversed universe. It's not an exact mirror, either...some of the personalities are a bit different, for example. Right now the Legion is on the way to confront Mordra the Merciless on the Cemetary Asteroid Shanghalla, and they've already run into the dead risen from their graves to serve Mordra...and there are quite a few dead Legionnaires buried there...

 

I did a scenario in "Horror World", from Champions in 3-D. I don't like horror, myself, but some of my players do, and I got some nice compliments from my handling of that one.

 

I've done one where the PC found themselves in a world where all the characters from DC, Marvel, and Champions were all in existence.

 

I've done others, too, but for the moment those are the major ones I remember.]

[Agent X]

Presently, the heroes are engaged in intermittent battles with the evil mastermind counterpart to one of this Earth's greatest heroes of the 60s and 70s. This guy is trying to add yet another Earth to his collection.

 

I use various campaign setting as alternate Earths so there is a Freedom City Earth, Strike Force Earth, Empire City Earth, and a Millennium City Earth and more along with my own Superior City Earth.

[McCoy]

*Raises hand*

 

The most memorable one was the "Scavenger Hunt." The Avengers had had foci stolen, stashed on alternate Earths, and spell cast so no Avenger could come after them. So the remaining Avengers had to call upon the PC's for help.

 

Terminator World, where Ultron was mere hours away from wipeing all carbon based life from the planet.

 

Mutant World, where Magneto was Emperior of Earth.

 

Nazi World, WWII yadda yadda.

 

In Each world they met at least one PC counterpart. Also one character had an intense dislike for Frenzy, so the met her in all of the alternate worlds, twice as an ally, once as an opponent.

[Hermit]

Done a lot of alternate earths. I enjoy dimension hopping the PCs for both my and their amusement/entertainment.

[Mayday]

While I havent run them, I've played in them... I like Mayday alot and a few others and so if it is meant to be a 5 minute character cameo I'll pull out a familiar face and use them.

 

Mayday started out in my home grown superhero world as an NPC of Carmen & Co. Next appeared in two Champions campaigns and numerous one shot games. She later cameo'd in a World of Darkness game called in by the government run Inquisition group to use her psi to hunt the paranormal, who got kidnapped and ghouled by a Settite due to her red hair. Next was played in Colonial Bay (the Champions MUSH).

 

It works fairly well as a linear history to my surprise.

 

I like Alternate Earth's. Heck I just like gaming!

[Adventus]

I have an entire campaign planned to run. In the early 80's, a rift was torn in space/time by a well intentioned hero. He saved about 50 people by doing this. They were scattered across the multiverse. He has been unable to close the rift since then. He has discovered that to close the rift permanently, Those people would have to be retrieved. This is were the players come in. They will be doing the retrieval.

[Trebuchet]

Originally posted by Dr. Anomaly

I've done a "Fuzzy Animal" world scenario for the Legion of Super-Heroes game I run. Hidden Dragon (the PC), a martial artist with invisibility and a few other useful powers, got tossed into a world where there was no such creature as humans, and her counterpart really was a dragon. The Legion in that world included members like Brainy-Quack 5, Mon-Eel, Shadow Lassie, Sun Bear, Colossal Boar, Phantom Gull, and so on. I played it serious, not for laughs. The major threat during that scenario was when Earth was invaded by Pulsecat Stargrave and the Duck Circle.

Whoa, Doc, you've got a heck of an imagination! I tip my hat to you, sir. I don't think I would ever have come up with a Furry Universe, and even if I did I'd never have been able to play it straight. (I don't know why, because I'm a huge Darkwing Duck fan, but there you are.)

 

And if you think I started this thread to get plot ideas for my own campaign, you'd be right.

[Hermit]

"Fanfic World" ... every super hero's worst nightmare

[Doug McCrae]

I did a Backworld one in the early '90s. That had a fascist government too (they're very common in alternate Earths) which IIRC also had Golden Avenger as the president of the US.

 

For that campaign I was also gonna do a Nazi world but never did for some reason. These days I don't think I'd even plan it as I find the idea a bit hackneyed.

 

I'm a big fan of the other dimension concept, though not so much the alternate Earths where history has taken a different course, those aren't weird (or original) enough for my taste.

[Acroyear II]

My players were caught in an explosion caused by Dr. Destroyer and transported to an alternate reality. In their home dimension they were believed killed by Dr. Destroyer. The alternate earth they were transported to was involved in a world war between one PCs alternate evil self (leading alien soldiers and many demonic villains) vs Dr. Destroyer's army of supervillains. Both sides are out to take over the world. Caught in the middle are the PCs, who joined with the remains of the world's super heroes to battle both sides.

 

These alternate earth scenarios lasted almost 8 months of real time. When the heroes finally returned home, they discovered that a year had passed on their earth in contrast to the two weeks they spent on Earth-D.

 

I think the most interesting thing about this story was when the heroes found out from what point in time the alternate earth diverged from there own. One of the PCs father was a hero in the 1970's. This hero had an affair with a teammate's wife, and the affair later became known to all. The wife, torn between both men did not know which to choose (Golden Eagle (the PCs father) or Rocket Man (her husband)). During a mission Golden Eagle had the choice of either engaging his arch foe in ariel combat, or heading back to aid Rocket Man against an overwelming force of VIPER agents. On the PCs world Golden Eagle chose to engage his arch foe which resulted in him being crippled and his teammate Rocket Man dying at the hands of VIPER. On the alternate Earth, Golden Eagle went back to aid his rival teammate Rocket Man, and saved his life. Ironically, by doing the right thing, Golden Eagle inadvertantly started a chain of events that allowed his arch foe to escape and later bring about a massive invasion of Earth by alien forces!

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Doug McCrae

I did a Backworld one in the early '90s. That had a fascist government too (they're very common in alternate Earths) which IIRC also had Golden Avenger as the president of the US.

 

For that campaign I was also gonna do a Nazi world but never did for some reason. These days I don't think I'd even plan it as I find the idea a bit hackneyed.

 

I'm a big fan of the other dimension concept, though not so much the alternate Earths where history has taken a different course, those aren't weird (or original) enough for my taste.

Nazi worlds aren't hackneyed. They're classic.

[Lightray]

I just finished up a series of alternate earth scenarios before the holidays. Someone was mucking around with the timeline, and four of the PCs found themselves bouncing between alternate earths, trying to put things right.

 

Roman Earth was first up, where the Roman Empire had never fallen, and superpowered gladiators fought in the arena for the entertainment of the masses. The good guys were the Cruciferians (pacifists united under their symbol: "X"), led by Crucifera -- a crippled version of a PC with uber-sensory powers, in a wheelchair.

 

Ch'in Earth was next, where the Ch'in Empire had expanded over the Americas. Everybody was kung-fu fightin', and the good guys were the Shaolin Temple.

 

Nazi Earth was next. Nazi superhumans, other superhumans put into death camps and used as guinea pigs. Big brawl invading a concentration camp to free the dying and mutilated superhumans. The players hated the Nazis from the get-go -- much more viscerally than any of the previous Evil Empires.

 

Soviet Earth was last. It was post-apocalyptic, where the Soviets had won the Cold War after a nuclear exchange. They'd conquered America, but nuclear winter had basically led to the downfall of civilization. I gave things a western feel, with supernatural monsters coming out to hunt the remnants of humanity. They had a showdown in a city overrun by vampires, and found their leader to be Gratz -- who had been killed years and years and years ago in our campaign.

 

I loved doing the alternate earth thing because I didn't have to make up new characters -- I just adapted the villains and player characters.

 

The players loved seeing how their characters changed from world to world, and were inspired by knowing everything about those characters. They're still proud of the time in the Roman arena:

 

"Aagh! It's Pharoah! Quick, everybody hit him!"

*Pharoah goes down, forestalling my soliloquy*

"Hey, it worked!"

 

All in all, the experience finally got them to start developing tactics. Take down the big guy fast. Deal with the agents before attrition can take its toll. Have a plan going in.

 

Great stuff.

[Stephen Mann]

My Dimension-hopping campaign

 

It all started when a bunch of villains hid out on Sanctuary Island after a huge heist. The resulting bad press really pissed off a bunch of heroes, so they called a meeting of heroes in NYC to talk about what to do.

 

During the conference, Godzilla invaded Manhatten for about half an hour (before spontaneously disappearing), Confederate and Nazi soldiers popped up in various downtown places, and other strangeness happened before they all disappeared at the same time.

 

After a while, a bunch of heroes (including the PCs, who had been fighting Godzilla) found the location of strange signals that seemed to coincide with the appearance and disappearance of these weirdos. Down in an abandoned subway branch, a loony villain was running a Land Rover strapped to a railcar chassis up and down the track. After chasing the villain away, the heroes decided to take the Land Rover back to the police.

 

The non-fliers piled inside the Rover while the fliers got in back of the thing to push (the vehicle had no engine). Considering that a few of the fliers had high top speeds, they quickly were breaking local speed laws (and still accelerating). After making sure that PCs really wanted to do this, I informed them that upon hitting 88 mph, a swirling rainbow of light blinded them before leaving them on a quiet country road.

 

In short, they had been transported to The Way (an interdimensional highway created by Wayne Shaw), with no good way home. They had to work as superhuman mercenaries for a while to make enough money to buy a vehicle that could be guaranteed to take them home.

 

They first fought a zombie invasion on a fantasy world; imagine their panic when their brick fell down after getting hit by the local equivalent of a magic missile spell. Who knew he was wildly vulnerable to magic (besides the GM that is, I laughed myself silly)? I used Grimtooth's Traps to populate the necromancer's tower they had to invade. While they all survived, a few needed massive magical healing, regeneration, and restoration. Fortunately, the loot from the tower paid for that a quite a bit more.

 

They eventually got home, swearing to never go near magic again, never to go dimension-hopping again, and to be very very cautious around traps involving barrels of acid....

[TheEmerged]

Originally posted by Agent X

Nazi worlds aren't hackneyed. They're classic.

 

Actually, as the resident counterfactual nut on the board (which is the scholarly term for "alternate history", a term that has fallen out of favor because it's been adopted by neoNazi groups), I'd say the proper word is CLICHED. And like any good cliche, they can still work when handled right.

 

For example, I'm reading through Harry Turtledove's "In the Presence of My Enemies", his recently-published Nazi World (I will, someday, get up enough interest to read "Ruled Britannia" which many of his fans are calling his best work since "How Few Remain"). He's gone the standard "Isolationist America = Nazi World" route, although at the point in the book I've reached he hasn't even touched how it happened beyond letting us know that America was defeated in a World War 3 and that nukes were involved.

 

=======================================================

 

As to running "Alt Earth" scenarios -- I've run dozens. Of course my standard for naming something a counterfactual might be looser than yours -- I'd call my current campaign, in which superpowers arrive in the early 70's, a light counterfactual for example. I feel that way because the arrival of superpowers means that the NeoChampion world is different than the "real" world in "realistic" ways (sorry for the scare quotes but I don't have the time to explain in depth) as opposed to blindly following genre convention.

 

But I've done the more standard, closer-to-the-book-definition counterfactuals as both scenarios and even a campaign or two. In fact, I ran a 100/100 NCM-default campaign in a glamorized Nazi-world (PC's had 100 points plus 100 points of disadvantages and Normal Characteristic Maxima by default).

[Lord Liaden]

Re: My Dimension-hopping campaign

 

Originally posted by Stephen Mann

In short, they had been transported to The Way (an interdimensional highway created by Wayne Shaw), with no good way home.

 

Wayne Shaw's Lords of the Way campaign book playtest manuscript was a very fine piece of work - rather like Zelazny's "Amber" for the HERO System. I'd love to be able to post it here, since it has a lot of potential as the premise for dimension-hopping games with or without the Lords. However, I don't know what Wayne's reaction would be to having his manuscript publicly disseminated.

 

Anyone know where I could get in touch with Mr. Shaw to ask his permission?

[Guest Keneton]

I recently ran an alternate earth game. The chracters were returning from their triumph of an ET Threat and were bounced at a stargate when it was struck by a space nuke. They returned to earth, but in this case an alternate earth where Isvatha Vhan rules. Most of her day to day duties on this earth were administered by Worlord Korm, sort of a Mandarin knockoff. The charcetrs had to get past Korm and his cronies to gainaccess to a starship and rendevous with The Grays (a friendly alien race) to get back to the "real" earth.

 

It was one of the best sessions for us in a long time and my players really responded with great roleplaying.

 

[Lightray]

Originally posted by Keneton

They returned to earth, but in this case an alternate earth where Isvatha Vhan rules.

Okay, 'nother question for everybody.

 

What is the rubber science (or magical) explanation for everybody's alternate earths?

 

For example, Keneton, was that alternate earth merely one of the many dimensions Isvatha Vhan rules? Or was it their own earth where things had gone somehow wrong?

 

I ask because in my campaign, I've had both alternate earths and alternate timelines. The former are earth-like dimensions where physical laws or natural events played out slightly differently, but still developed to be recognizably earth-like. The latter is the "true" earth where events in the past have been altered, leading to a different present.

[WilyQuixote]

Our current CHAMPIONS campaign actually is an alternate earth kinda deal. The original one we started out in was a cyberpunk-ish-batman-beyond kinda game. We got in way over our heads on our second mission and things were getting more and more dangerous for us, near death incidents and all that crazy stuff. The players with the exception of me wanted to end that game before it ended them, so the GM (killer Shrike) graciously chalked it up to a learning experience for them and we started anew in the current campaign were somethings were similar but it was all very much different. Aside from that I always loved the WHAT IF title done by Marvel comics, some of the stories in those comics were fantastic. They almost always made me wish their version of events were what really happened.

[Killer Shrike]

Essentially, the followup campaign is a variant 5e CU. The primary difference is that the world is a tad darker, a tad more dangerous, and basically a tad less Silver Age and more Bronze Age than CU.

 

This wasnt done necessarily deliberately; I just tend to have a more "hard" spin on things, with enforced cause & effect. More serious.

 

I brought over some of the characters from the Cyberpunk-Metahuman dimension in the way of CU analogues -- so less cyborgs and more "mutants", but versions of many of the same characters exist in the bg.

[Killer Shrike]

Ive done actual pure alternate dimension adventures, where the heros travel to different dimensions similar to the mixed-bag Excalibur bit -- in the past, but lately (the last 6 years or so) just havent been in the mood for them.

 

Its easy to get "trapped" in Quantum Leap type traps where its never quite right to bring the heroes home just yet, so I keep jumping them around trying to finagle plot elements to "work" just so for that sweet cinematic finisher.

 

More trouble than its worth to do right in most cases, and to easy to do half-arsed IMO.

[Guest Keneton]

Originally posted by Lightray

Okay, 'nother question for everybody.

 

What is the rubber science (or magical) explanation for everybody's alternate earths?

 

For example, Keneton, was that alternate earth merely one of the many dimensions Isvatha Vhan rules? Or was it their own earth where things had gone somehow wrong?

 

I ask because in my campaign, I've had both alternate earths and alternate timelines. The former are earth-like dimensions where physical laws or natural events played out slightly differently, but still developed to be recognizably earth-like. The latter is the "true" earth where events in the past have been altered, leading to a different present.

 

I try to avoid the allternate earth timeline thing such as "What if Hitler won?" I avoid these types now that Isvatah Vhan exists. I also try to avoid big pardoxes by making the worlds vastly different, with possibly no duplicates of the characters around.

 

You must leave some things the same so as to eccentuate the differances.