The Event

[Chimpira]

Some of us like them and some of us hate them, but we all have been subjected to them. I am talking about the 'summer' event in comics when they try to do something so big that it runs through most of the books on the shelf. Crisis on Infinite Earths, Secret Wars, Bloodlines and all the rest. In the Champions Universe, the Battle of Detroit would be one such event.

 

I have plans to do something like this in my game. The first one will just involve the players as another team of people that are helping The Sentinels. Their part will be crucial but they will be pulled in by the more experienced team as part of their plan to defeat the threat. It should only run about 1 to 2 game sessions.

 

I am getting them used to this idea because the next event will have them in the driver's seat and will run several game sessions.

 

What I would like to know is have you ever participated in an event in your universe? Something that dragged in quite a few teams and what not.

[jackalope]

Re: The Event

 

What I would like to know is have you ever participated in an event in your universe? Something that dragged in quite a few teams and what not.

 

I have not, but because my current group (The Jet City Champions) is unofficially sponsered by UNTIL and has close ties with them, a team-up/confrontation with UNITY is inevitable.

[Argus]

Re: The Event

 

I was once living in Idaho, yes Idaho, and I was running several Hero Games at different levels (75 point normal, 150 Heroic 250 Super Heroic and 300 + Long Running game) and my roommate was running a 250 point game.

 

They were all in different worlds, and the 75 point Normal game was the players playing themselves in a time travel game.

 

I was leaving Idaho and I started a 4-week game that took all the characters and pulled them all together for a massive fight against a Dark Wizard, that was the Bane of the Normal Players.

 

My roommate figured out the I was the Wizard just before I revealed it to them

 

It was great when they came across their superheroes in their normal world.

 

A.

[sinanju]

Re: The Event

 

What I would like to know is have you ever participated in an event in your universe? Something that dragged in quite a few teams and what not.

 

Yes. I was running a cyberpunk game and decided I wanted to change it into a supers game. So I had the PCs get involved in a desperate race to find the last invention of the late, lamented Dr. Saburo Pak. Dr. Pak was a supergenius who'd revolutionized genetic engineering, and now he was dead--murdered, his latest top secret project stolen. EVERYBODY wanted it--corporations, governments, yakuza, mafia types, everybody. And everybody had a different story about what this last project was and what it was supposed to do.

 

It turned out to be the Wild Card virus. The cannister was punctured during a rooftop confrontation between several rival groups as they fought for possession of it (and boy did _that_ take some doing to pull off). The cannister exploded, scattering spores all over the city and, eventually, the world. The PCs, of course, survived and gained a varieyt of weird powers.

[DoctorItron]

Re: The Event

 

The only "event" I've GMed has been a 4 week heroes vs. villains adventure. My friend ran the heroes, I ran the villains. IIRC, the villains won because they did a better job cooperating with each other than did the heroes. I'd never do it again - it was too much work coordinating the simultaneous actions of different groups.

[Blue]

Re: The Event

 

All the champions games I run are events.

 

[Chimpira]

Re: The Event

 

All the champions games I run are events.

 

Heck, if that is the case, I am in Los Angeles. Mind if I show up for my cameo?

[Pulsar]

Re: The Event

 

I'm working on a PBP/PBEM game that will have the characters trying to find out what happened to 2 mainline hero teams, who were attacked and apparently killed at the same time, and which also destroyed a good chunk of Chicago. This would be the biggest "event" that I have run in any of the game systems.

[Doctor Otaku]

Re: The Event

 

Boy, it seems that when I get finished with an 'event' I get started on something else big and nasty to keep the setting on its toes. I've had the invasion by the Kytellan Empire, Lord Lukifel's first attempt to conquer the world, the war with the real Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and I just recently finished up the massive War on Terror story arc. And now I have plans for an uber-cosmic nasty to show up and give everyone a massive scare.

[Chimpira]

Re: The Event

 

That reminds me of something a player said to me during my first Hero Campaign about 14 years ago. "Damn. We have stopped invasions from outer space, saved the universe twice and fought Death. What exactly is wrong with throwing in just one bank robbery?"

[Theron]

Re: The Event

 

I like them thematically, but off stage, as a bit of recent history. They make good stepping off points.

 

The last campaign I actually ran was set in an "animated" version of the New Millenium setting. I found the aftermath of the Proprietor war an excellent way to introduce new PCs (in fact, one of the PCs, an individual called Scion, was literally formed from the conjoint energies of The Proprietor, Dr. Doom, and The Marksman).

 

If I run another four color game, I would most likely set things up so that the PCs origins are directly tied to an earth-shattering event.

[death tribble]

Re: The Event

 

First one we did was the Destroyer War. The Destroyer sought to destroy the universe so The Temporal Police asked for the help of the Protectors in stopping him.

 

So we went backwards and forwards in time getting pieces of the Archon's power in order to have a chance to beat the Destroyer. This resulted in some interesting long term problems: The Ranger killing two villains by chopping them down with his sword; the Swamp Witch mind controlling Wolverine; the first appearance and defeat of Assassin.

Last battle was at the beginning of the Earth as a habitable planet where the Destroyer was taken on mano a mano by the team. We won. But he came back.....

 

Second Destroyer war was an excuse to explore the Universe. And he was defeated by Wolverine full of power. We were suckered into collecting his power for him. D'oh ! What are the chances of that happening ?

 

We wrecked Birmingham (England) twice. First of all Dr Apocalypse set off a volcano in the Bull Ring (part of the city not a place of Spanish entertainment) and unleashed the 4 Horsemen of Dr Apocalypse. Then the Destroyer came back again and killed a goodly portion of the inhabitants before two of the team killed the person he was inhabiting thus getting rid of him.

[Lightray]

Many years ago (when we all had more time) we had several campaigns going on with different GMs, all set in the same campaign world. Crossover events were de rigeur.

 

One of the GMs would be in charge of the event. Normally, most of the effects would be pertinant to his city (e.g., source of the villain, ground zero of the disaster, whatever). He or she would either guest GM or pass out villains to use in running prelude adventures.

 

And then, we'd have a multi-adventure story arc that ended up with a big knock-down drag-out fight that's usually a pain to run (everyone running multiple characters).

 

The last Event I had run before the campaigns ended was the Dream Wars -- the Lords of Dreams and Nightmares were fighting each other in the minds of dreamers and on the waking world. When I restarted the campaign world for our current game, that Event turned out to be the cause of many psionic children being born (all about 14 years old now). One of the players also used it as part of her character Dreamwalker's origin.