You don't really GET a choice...

[Hermit]

Has anyone ever run a Champions game where the premis was the characters had no choice but to be super heroes? At least at the start?

 

Ways this could come about to my mind include

1. Community Service- Villains are allowed to reduce time, but they have to do it by being super heroes and putting their skins on the line protecting the city they would have once robbed.

 

2. If you want to live, put on tights- Rare diesese or medical problems plague the Characters, and there is a corporation/doctor/wealthy guy who can arrange to save them AND give them powers... the catch? They have to put on costumes and fight crime. Their patron maybe hoping to cash in on the super craze, or may just be ruthless in fighting crime. If the characters don't get regular injections (irradations, whatever) whatever medical problem it is could come back. Related, maybe it's not the character, but one of his loved ones who needs curing "Yes, we can save your baby... by the way, I think you'd look lovely in red spandex."

 

3. Mystical/Cosmic Compulsion- Either you find yourself granted power and fighting crime with it against your will, or at the least, you transform into a costumed figure every time some evil arises, and you won't get to go back to your normal life until you rectify it. Maybe you brought this in part on yourself (Mocked a god, messed with an archelogical dig, etc).

 

Naturally, the above are just some basic ideas, and you'll notice I said characters, not players. If the players don't like the idea of characters in these situations, I can't see it as a good idea to try it.

 

But if they're amendible, it might be interesting to start it out with no choice, then see how the characters develop and what they might make when they DO finally get power over their own lives again...

 

I'm reminded of a line from Batman Beyond by Magma... Terry pleads with Magma to stop, telling the former scientist he's a hero too... Magma disagrees...

" Heroes have a choice, WE never did."

 

Thoughts?

[NecroBob]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

Yup I did this kind of thing. In the starting one of our characters made a few silly mistakes and wound up with a bit of jail time, seperating him from the 'main' campaign group. Pequed by certain later statements I created my sarcastic vampire anti-hero Testament. He'd been incarcerated for some time and working in the new prison system that allowed reduced sentances for taking what anyone would call suicide missions. When your immortal things just have to be interesting. Especially when to your knowledge nothing can kill you.[They strapped a little bomb that would decapitate him if he double crossed them. It's not that he thinks it'll kill him. He just doesn't feel like escaping right now.]

 

First and only mission we played so far was to sneak onto the Dr.D's island so we could put a hack device on his system for a couple of seconds. Many fun statements by Testament to his heroic team mate.

[Blue]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

I've had playes write it into their origins, but I haven't implemented it across the board on an entire team.

[Bengal]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

The whole idea of the Big Meeting always seems at least to some extent contrived; it's inevitable based upon the fact that the players agree that it should happen. How it happens is secondary to the "start of the superteam" or whatever, and figures more prominently in the future plots and subplots. Perhaps that's what you're asking about? How this sort of origin should affect the plots in future?

[Hermit]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

The whole idea of the Big Meeting always seems at least to some extent contrived; it's inevitable based upon the fact that the players agree that it should happen. How it happens is secondary to the "start of the superteam" or whatever' date=' and figures more prominently in the future plots and subplots. Perhaps that's what you're asking about? How this sort of origin should affect the plots in future?[/quote']

 

Well, take it how you like it, but mostly I'm wondering about how this would affect the team, how viable it would be as a way to get a team together, and yeah... the ramifications.

 

Also wondered if anyone had done it before Thanks to those who'd responded so far.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

The H.A.R.D. Corps comic series by Valiant Comics was like this. All of the members of the team were catatonic and legally dead. Some company took their bodies and implanted some sort of device into their brains that allowed them to a) no longer be catatonic and use one Harbinger ability at a time, turned off and on by a remote controller.

 

If they didnt do what the corporation wanted them to, a charge in their head was set off, killing them.

 

The original group were Vietnam vets IIRC, but newer recruits were younger and of mixed backgrounds. Several members of the team were killed over the course of the comic.

 

One that I remember was IIRC "Superstar" who was a young former celebrity, and a daredevil. He fell in love with the Invulnerability power and would do all sorts of insane antics with Invul on, looking for a bigger adrenaline rush. He kept jeopardizing missions with his stunts, so finally mission control turned off invulnerability when he was crashing a motorcycle and he died horribly.

[Ghost who Walks]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

Well, IMC, some of authorities were reluctant to put superpowered people in prison. Stronghold existed, (I put it on Alcatraz), but it was federal. There were also a lot of escape attempts.

 

So, every year the team would have tryouts. During which new capes would try and join the team. They would range from the high powered to the low, and if you added certain people to your team, you got a grant from the government! (the Black, female, Jewish Lesbian, for example)

 

It was actually a lot of fun to do, and the local prison would always bus over some metas who had been locked up, and were on good behavior. Here are some of the ones who got accepted:

 

1) The South Korean water controller who escaped to the USA to get off her governments military team. She got a job protecting fishing boats off of California, and got jailed for using her waterpowers against a Greenpeace ship.

 

2) The ex-Olympic skiier, who went through a process with her boyfriend to get powers. When her boyfriend was arrested for robbery, she refused to testify against him so theey locked her up also.

 

3) The metahuman guy who fought in WWII, was assigned by the FBI in 1946 to infiltrate some group called VIPER, was arrested and disowned by the government, and sentanced to 50 years of solitary confinement. Got 10 years off for being a model prisoner, in solitary confinement. Had a whole plotline where he was battling the kids of the politiicans who had arranged to have him locked up, for knowing too much.

(The other way to bring in Captain America)

 

4) Das Wall, from European Enemies. Was arrested by the group in a battle with Eurostar. Played as a blackmailed socialist Captain America type, with superstrength.

 

All the above were NPCs. The funny thing was the same time the prison bus was unlaoding, one of the new PC superheroes walked in, and got inline behind the criminals. For years afterwards, the other players claimed he had come in with the criminals.

 

I also once had a player who was possessed by the spirit of an imprisoned god, whenever he took BODY. A bit like the Hulk in concept, with magic powers.

 

The US government had a military team in my campaign called "Strike Force". During the 90s, they stuck a bunch of suprvillains on it, renaming them privates. Got sent on all kinds of crazy missions.

[ghost-angel]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

The "Reluctant Hero" taken to the next level .. I don't think I've ever tried it or had it set down as the rules for a campaign, but it'd be an interesting and cool idea.

 

The closest I've come is our high powered campaign where the "heros" weren't so much forced into the role of hero, or coerced, but attacked into it for simply knowing too much (Demon invasion scenario) - the characters are decidely not nice people, bordering on evil at times (the two heavy hitters are an assassin and a mercenary, neither of which blink at the death of innocents) and ended up in a world saving situation (we haven't actually saved the world yet....) from which there isn't any escape. Group of bad people are still motstly bad but working for a good cause... yeah - that's a good way to put it.

[Agent333]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

After years of running vampire:the masquerade it seemed inevitable I'd run a superhero game like this: 50 years from now, Earth has been conqoured by a technologically and psionically advanced race of large, humanoid, warm-blooded reptiles called the Tarlok. In the decades since they took over, and wiped out every super-team that opposed them, an underground has been built to recruit young teen mutants who are just coming into thier powers. These children get brought up in an environment where they are taught to fight and told they are the last hope for mankind, all while trying to stay hidden from the Tarlok and the human government agents that work for them. Long story short: Older, sometimes weaker, superheroes are the mentors for the younger mutants (the players). Once assaigned to a group the mutants operate like a terroist cel and take on missions assigned from their cel-liason or mentor (this easily gets around the contrived feel of some super-group formations). As you can imagine the game is stark and gritty, almost a superpowered version of a Tom Clancy novel, except the players are on the losing side.

 

One of the major themes we ran into early on was the matter of choice. With so many of these children pressed into a war that many want no part of, it's not uncommon for some to go to the other side looking for "a better life" in the brave new fascist America, where traitors to the Resistance are well rewarded (or so the Beaureau of Control and Registration propoganda machine would have you think...). Their first adventure, my players had to deal with an older member of their cel (a GMPC) who had become a traitor and turned on them during a sensitive mission. Drove home that in this world, much like in vampire, you have to watch everyone: even people you thought you could trust.

 

Maybe this is a good example of not really getting a choice. Much like the Batman Beyond episode that was quoted, it seems when supers are allowed to act like everyday people; desire and need are going to run against truth and justice from time to time. As for my players, I hope they discover that if they had really been given the choice, they'd still be fighting to free the earth from alien invaders. One would hope we all would

[Hermit]

Re: You don't really GET a choice...

 

The H.A.R.D. Corps comic series by Valiant Comics was like this. All of the members of the team were catatonic and legally dead. Some company took their bodies and implanted some sort of device into their brains that allowed them to a) no longer be catatonic and use one Harbinger ability at a time, turned off and on by a remote controller.

 

If they didnt do what the corporation wanted them to, a charge in their head was set off, killing them.

 

The original group were Vietnam vets IIRC, but newer recruits were younger and of mixed backgrounds. Several members of the team were killed over the course of the comic.

 

One that I remember was IIRC "Superstar" who was a young former celebrity, and a daredevil. He fell in love with the Invulnerability power and would do all sorts of insane antics with Invul on, looking for a bigger adrenaline rush. He kept jeopardizing missions with his stunts, so finally mission control turned off invulnerability when he was crashing a motorcycle and he died horribly.

 

Ouch!

Harsh, but I admit I wish I'd read Valiant comics.