Every good four color supers games needs:

[nexus]

A mutant/supers hating organization, giant hunter/killer robots optional

 

A mad/amoral genius that makes gimmick weapons (Ala The Toymaker)

 

A "greatest hero group in the world"

 

A "lone avenger of the night"

 

A Ancronym named organization of super villiany, ususally snake themed.

 

A sorcercer supreme

 

A source of ninja

 

Any others?

[Vanguard00]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Four color superheroes. Not gun-toting psychopaths, not bizarre creatures of the night, but good ol' fashioned heroes. You'd be surprised at how often that's overlooked.

 

A friendly, slightly-older-yet-still-distinguished-looking genius, preferably the father of a hero or a former hero himself.

 

An upbeat and focused (driven, even) journalist, charming in a meddling sort of way.

 

At least one public detractor who has no hidden agenda. He just doesn't like the hero/heroes/superheroes in general.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

A major mastermind villain who rules his own country/planet/dimension.

 

A colorful wisecracking hero with slightly silly looking (but effective) powers.

 

A hero with a monstrous alter-ego, or trapped in a monstrous-looking body.

 

Absolutely nobody with a name containing "Dark," "Death" or "Blood."

[austenandrews]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

I like this thread. For my next Champs campaign I want to consciously avoid the biggest cliches, yet maintain the four-color flavor. I'll dig this thread up when that time comes.

 

-AA

[Vanguard00]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Absolutely nobody with a name containing "Dark' date='" "Death" or "Blood."[/quote']

 

 

Caveat: Villains are allowed to use the above three monikers in their names. Especially if they are the nemesis of one of the heroes.

[ArmlessTigerMan]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Secret civilizations in lost cities: Atlantis, Lemuria, Mu, Shangi-La, K'un L'un. The inhabitants may be superpowered, like the Inhumans, Eternals, or Deviants. Alternately, lost explorers who find these cities emerge months later as superheroes or supervillains.

 

Tons of aliens. Good, bad, just too darn many races to keep track of.

 

A secret city of hyper-intelligent gorillas with advanced mental powers. Bless Steve Long for bringing my favorite piece of the Silver Age to the CU.

 

The team of supervillains whose origins, backgrounds, and powers have absolutely NOTHING in common, save that a) they are all very greedy, or they are each the main hunted of one of the heroes.

 

Adventures where all the heroes get transformed into something; like puppets, statues, trees, or animals.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Caveat: Villains are allowed to use the above three monikers in their names. Especially if they are the nemesis of one of the heroes.

 

Very true. Thank you for clarifying that.

 

A few other standards:

 

An "elder statesman" hero whom everyone respects and looks to for inspiration and leadership;

 

Heroes and villains who owe their origins to the mythic gods, or who actually are mythic gods;

 

Villain teams based on a particular theme - animals, circuses, the Zodiac, etc.;

 

Artificial intelligence heroes such as androids and robots, or humans with brains transferred into them, who question their place among humanity;

 

Interstellar empires that threaten Earth, usually with "super class" champions leading the assault;

 

Evil mirror-images of major heroes, often from an alternate world;

 

"Pumped-up" versions of legendary evil creatures, such as vampires, werewolves, and demons.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Paridoxically brilliant and helpless npc's to bedevil the PC's by getting in over their heads

[Fenixcrest]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Don't forget the acronym-named secret agent team, named either after an archaic weapon or a preposition.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Secret civilizations in lost cities: Atlantis, Lemuria, Mu, Shangi-La, K'un L'un. The inhabitants may be superpowered, like the Inhumans, Eternals, or Deviants. Alternately, lost explorers who find these cities emerge months later as superheroes or supervillains.

 

A secret city of hyper-intelligent gorillas with advanced mental powers. Bless Steve Long for bringing my favorite piece of the Silver Age to the CU.

Yeah! Love those hidden valleys.

[Magmarock]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

That's it, I am creating a meglo-maniacal supervillain called Dr. Dark Bloody-Death and he will have as his major disad: Hunts all known heroes.

 

That should be enough points to build a nifty base.

 

Mags

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Gorillas. Lots and lots of gorillas. Talking gorillas, gorillas in suits, giant gorillas, super-powered gorillas, space gorillas.

 

Grey temples - after Reed, Nick and Hal

 

Villains, usually robots, with all the powers of a hero team

 

Hero weddings gatecrashed by villains

 

Coming back from the dead

 

Hero imitators - Sidekicks, female versions, clones, alternate universe versions. Heroes cluster round a popular character: Superman, Batman, Fawcett Captain Marvel

 

Cocky, wisecracking superheroes

 

Monstrous, embittered superheroes

 

Alliterative names

 

Armies of blaster-totin' costumed goons

 

Death traps

 

Mind controlled hero forced to kill his team mates so breaks out of the mind control

 

Cosmic crossovers - at least one per year at from 1985 onwards

 

Doomsday devices

 

Energy beam striking opposing energy beam head on - battle of the beams ensues

 

Crazy coincidences happen all the time. Like meeting your long lost father in space

 

Super metals

 

Codes vs killing

 

Everything changes but stays the same really - costumes, powers, team rosters

 

Whenever two heroes meet for the first time mayhem ensues

 

Symbols - Superman and Batman's chest insignia for example

 

Epithets - Man of Steel or Jade Giantess for example

 

Secret bases

 

Very powerful heroes are vulnerable to a substance that's harmless for normal folk

 

Physically impaired heroes - blind, lame, heart problems

 

All hidden valleys, galactic empires and imaginary countries, such as Latveria, have extremely unstable governments.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Actually I'm a little unclear on the meaning of 4 color. Does it mean Golden/Silver age? Or classic comic book? After all some of the stuff nexus originally mentioned (the source of ninjas for example) developed in the 70s or later.

[pinecone]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Monkeys....radioactive monkeys, alien monkeys, cyborg monkeys, mystical monkeys...its all good. Especially the Giant monkeys...

[Enforcer84]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Monkeys....radioactive monkeys' date=' alien monkeys, cyborg monkeys, mystical monkeys...its all good. Especially the Giant monkeys...[/quote']

Everything goes better with monkeys.

 

 

 

Rogues Galleries of one hit wonder costumed villains.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Names beginning with titles such as Dr or Captain. Names ending in -man, -woman and the like.

 

Colourful costumes.

 

Capes.

 

Domino masks.

 

Unique gadgets and weapons.

 

Secret identities. Often the hero feigns incompetence or weakness in his non-heroic ID.

 

Trophy rooms.

 

Giant-size versions of everyday objects: huge fire extinguishers and giant pennies for example.

 

Villains who commit crimes related to a theme - birds or weather, for example.

 

Utopian futures - no post-apocalyptic war-zones.

 

Teenage crimefighters.

 

Powers caused by radiation.

 

Alternate earths.

 

Alien shapeshifters with green skin.

 

Heroes who fought in WW2.

 

Brilliant scientists, gadgeteers, detectives, martial artists, acrobats and weapon masters.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Robots with a flaw in their programming that causes them to attempt to destroy all organic life.

 

Enemy nationals - commies in the Silver Age, nazis in the Golden Age. (Today that role would be taken by Al-Qaeda types.)

 

Colossal monsters with names like Ulthoon or Gor-Goo-Rah.

 

Cosmic giants such as Galactus or the Celestials.

 

Pranksters.

 

Villains who say “You fool! Your energy blast only makes me more powerful!â€

 

Warped geniuses.

 

Female villains romantically involved with the hero.

 

Costumes based on playing cards.

 

Villains becoming heroes. Hawkeye or Black Widow for example.

 

Patriotic heroes with costumes based on the US flag.

 

Speedsters.

 

Underwater heroes.

 

Villains who rule:

1) A hidden race.

2) A crime syndicate.

3) Another dimension.

 

Mind controlling villains.

[AngryBug]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Catchphrases ("Great Scott!", "Suffering Sappho!!", "It's Clobberin' Time!!!")

 

Giant Robots

 

Time Travel (Without all that worry about causality or paradox!)

 

When someone shouts, "Nobody could possibly have survived that!!", they are always wrong

 

Unless you see the body, the Supervillain is NOT dead

 

If you see the body, they are probably still not dead

[Enforcer84]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Evil twins or siblings.

[zornwil]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Okay, so I compiled what is here so far and made the "Four Color Rating System" wherein you basically X off the attributes of your campaign and it totals at the bottom what % 4-color your campaign is. NOT what % your campaign is 4-color - i.e., is your campaign 30% 4-color, that kind of thing. No way to know that, but the rater can tell you just how much of the 4-color requirements you met.

 

Here's an Excel template and here (the one named with "XChampions" at the end is the result for my campaign.

 

Note - there's a weight column - I left them all as "1" but if people want to make suggestions as to how it should be weighted go for it and I will change it.

 

Also, please note, there's 2 similar ones (at least) - there's "nobody could have survived that blast" and "if the body isn't there, he's not dead" which are slightly but not much different. I left both in but let me know if I should remove one. Right now I put an "X" for my campaign by the "if the body isn't there" even though that's only true sometimes, but did not "X" the "nobody could have survived that blast" I was going to fudge and give myself a .5 anyway then saw 2 so...

 

What's interesting is that my campaign came up as 51%, which sounds actually about right, I'd say it's halfway what a 4-color campaign would be.

 

Anyone's thoughts?

 

Whoops, just had to reupload, didn't even notice the attachments did go as they were XLS, now in a ZIP.

 

This is stored offline if anyone actually wants it, PM or email me via the boards.

[zornwil]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Evil twins or siblings.

 

Whoops, missed this one while compiling, will get it the next update, I know there will be more.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Also' date=' please note, there's 2 similar ones (at least) - there's "nobody could have survived that blast" and "if the body isn't there, he's not dead" which are slightly but not much different.[/quote']The former is, I think, usually said of a hero by an innocent bystander just before said hero emerges out from under a bus or something. It's an immediate thing.

 

The other isn't really said as an actual quote. It's just always true of supervillains. Even though Professor Nuclear was blown up in an atomic explosion, he'll be back in a few issues, sure as anything.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Anyone's thoughts?

You don't have a single costume based on a playing card in your game!!? I'm shocked, saddened and sickened, I truly am.

[zornwil]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Hmmm, a single? Let me think - no, indeed not. I did just read that as a team or plural, though. I should have one eventually though as I keep meaning to include Alice, Queen of Hearts from SAS, almost literally the only character I liked from that book. I found their characters weaker than the stock HERO ones and I don't particularly care for those. As an aside, I really liked M&M's stock characters a lot.

[pinecone]

Re: Every good four color supers games needs:

 

Everything goes better with monkeys.

 

 

 

Rogues Galleries of one hit wonder costumed villains.

You got it buddy, I don't care what the DA says...