Champions, Decades gone by

[Hermit]

World War 2 super heroics seem quite popular, as do some pulp in the Pre WWII years. I wonder... breaking it down decade by decade after that... has anyone played a Champions game based in:

1950s- Does a world that wants a "return to Normalcy" have a place for super heroes? What of the McCarthy era? Would our super heroes be put on trial for being "unAmerican"?

1960s- From Flower power to space exploration, Civil Rights, and Vietnam. It would certainly be colorful. Would there be a 'generation gap' even among Super heroes?

1970's- Remembered chiefly for three things, "lack of taste, lack of taste and lack of taste" , it also had the Watergate Scandal, The Bicentenial ups swing, hostage situations... and god help us, Disco. Surely a source of villainy if ever there was one.

1980's- The Cold War heightens, then dies. Pac Man is in, and where video games rise, can computer tech be too far behind? The Space Shuttle brings pride and heart ache, Rock and Roll is king. Would there be superheroines with leg warmers as part of their costumes?

[Acroyear II]

My current campaign is set in the 1980's. We've played the last nine years, starting with 1983 and are currently up to 1988. We often use music of the era to spice things up. We also mention fads of the time to add flavor (like Rubix Cubes, female villains with big 80's hair, break dancing, etc.), and favorite television shows (Miami Vice), and major news events. It makes for a lot of fun.

 

Acroyear II

[winterhawk]

I have done quite a bit of fleshing out of the timeline for my campaign using the timeline in CU and one I found online at:

 

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/chihist.html

 

50s: The start of the reign of the first Mayor Daley and massive police corruption. Big fire at a Catholic Girls School changes building and fire codes nationwide (and creates a few supers).

 

60s: The Democratic Convention forces heros to choose sides as the 'Old Guard' and the 'New Generation'.

 

70s: Rise in power of the Chicago Mob and VIPER, leading to war between the two.

 

Originally posted by Hermit

1980's- The Cold War heightens, then dies. Pac Man is in, and where video games rise, can computer tech be too far behind? The Space Shuttle brings pride and heart ache, Rock and Roll is king. Would there be superheroines with leg warmers as part of their costumes?

 

This is was what made me want to post. A few players and I were brainstorming the history and someone said "Wasn't that around the time the JLA was lame?" So we came up with a lame duck team called the Starwarrirors (who couldn't even use their own name due to legal action by Lucasfilms). The members were all based on fads we recalled from the 80s: Dayglo, Breakdance, Joystick, Material Girl & Mohawk...and Dayglo wears legwarmers

[Redmenace]

Re: Champions, Decades gone by

 

I've done some of these in various campaigns:

 

 

 

Originally posted by Hermit

World War 2 super heroics seem quite popular, as do some pulp in the Pre WWII years. I wonder... breaking it down decade by decade after that... has anyone played a Champions game based in:

1950s- Does a world that wants a "return to Normalcy" have a place for super heroes? What of the McCarthy era? Would our super heroes be put on trial for being "unAmerican"?

 

Yeah, all of these themes and more. Supers with post traumatic stress disorder and communist friends in the closet, one was a wartime romance.

 

There was a schism between players who totally supported McCarthy, that is to say "in character", who stayed out in the open in red, white and blue costumes and the ones who went underground and adopted stealthy black wear and methodology.

 

My group and I enjoyed this part so much that it has become a campaign fixture with all of America's heroes divided into one of two camps.

 

 

1960s- From Flower power to space exploration, Civil Rights, and Vietnam. It would certainly be colorful. Would there be a 'generation gap' even among Super heroes?

 

The above campaign continued into the 60s. The generation gap was largely reflected by the Pro Govt. heroesfighting in South East Asia and the shadow lurkers staying stateside and absorbing the counter culture for good or bad, often bad.

 

With superhumans about there was no active space program, too much money was spent on early genetics and alternate technologies made possibly by savants.

 

DC had an interesting "Silver Age" kind of annual miniseries based on a world where super abilities appeared in the 60s. If your interested in the era it might be worth your while to check out as would the First Wild Cards anthology.

 

 

1970's- Remembered chiefly for three things, "lack of taste, lack of taste and lack of taste" , it also had the Watergate Scandal, The Bicentenial ups swing, hostage situations... and god help us, Disco. Surely a source of villainry if ever there was one.

 

NO! I was, barely, alive for it the first time, never again. Mostly, I remember the lack of taste.

 

1980's- The Cold War heightens, then dies. Pac Man is in, and where video games rise, can computer tech be too far behind? The Space Shuttle brings pride and heart ache, Rock and Roll is king. Would there be superheroines with leg warmers as part of their costumes?

 

This is when I started playing and GMing Champs and looking back, some of our characters and plots were very 80s. Wild Thing- Van Halenesque party animal, Rave- a broadcast mental illusionist, and one player who had a super soldier serum enhanced clone of Ronald Reagan. Yes really.

[Kevin Scrivner]

Rather than focusing on the depressing Red Menace aspects of the 1950s, why not instead do a fun schlocky science fiction take on superheroics? Flying bubble cars, personal mini-robots, arrow-shaped rockets traveling all over the galaxy, fishbowl spacesuit helmets, and let's not forget that wrist radio or television! The sky was no limit, science could bring us endless conveniences, and giant bugs were a routine annoyance.

[Hermit]

Methinks I hast offended

 

By all means, let's not forget the fun stuff about the 50's. Poodle skirts, team vehicles with BIG fins, and dance a thons (Your CON of 30 makes you a shoe in)

[death tribble]

Our campaign first started in the mid-80s. Actual date was late 84. We travelled through time more or less on schedule.

The Iran-Iraq war was partly kept going by Dr Apocalypse.

 

And then Birmingham in England was first devastated by a Volcano curtesy of the four horsemen of Dr Apocalypse, and then all but wiped out by The Destroyer.

 

Can't say we were into the fads that much. If you say that the 80s and early 90s are gadget obsessed then yes. We had Moonlight Shadow and other martial artists throwing signature weaponry around.

 

The Demoness eventually had tinted Red Hair. But that was partly due to the fact that part of her soul was demonic.

Mullet hair does were not worn as helmets and capes rather spoiled that look.

 

We did have heroes who fought in the war but their powers and abilities were greatly reduced from what the heroes of the 80s had.