Any campagine suggestions?

[McCoy]

deleted

[Enforcer84]

Well, lets see.

 

I never got a chance to try this but.

A mastervillain (sorry for the same ol) with dreams of world conquest and the gift of immortality (so he would move very slowly) was up to Phase Epsilon of his plans for conquest, in it he decided to raise a loyal army of superbeings. Sending his agents out to steal newborns, he has a group of scientists brainstorm superpower genisis technologies (genetic manipulation, Cybernetcs, Nanotechnolgy, chemical/radiation experiments, arcane rituals, anthything) the agents stealing the children use a simple MO of being established doctors (mastervillain has a far flung network of agents) and they merely tell the parents that the baby died in childbirth. Babies records are kept by mastervillain and thousands are experimented on.

 

fast forward a decade and a half. The PC's are part of his army. Born into servitude and raised for loyalty, the various methods of designing and creating metabeings has culled several dozen suitable candidates and the PC's are a training group that finds out their origins. Now this does require that the characters be at least somewhat rebelious to the cause at the beginning, then finding their true origins (he raises them to believe they are all orphans he has adopted and cared for) sends them over the edge.

The campagn begins with the characters on the run from a secret army of superbeings, trying to find their parents and struggling to find a place for themselves in the universe. Also attempts at revealing the master villain are stymed by his massive network of agents.

[RevHooligan]

Do your players have characters yet? I usually do character creation first and see what comes to mind from their backstories. In the campaign I'm running now, 4 out of 5 characters have a magic concept. I altered my first story idea to focus on more mystical themes.

 

A good Hunted is also a gift to a GM. I also play the "everything you know is wrong" trick on a character's backstory, twisting it so that the PC's perception of his past is not the whole story.

 

Frequently, I'll "revise" an NPC's motives or history to fit the game. As long as you don't contradict anything you've done in game, this is fair.

 

Steal. Steal plots from comics, tv, film. It's all been done before, so take it. I won't tell.

 

Last, ask your players what kind of stories they want to play. Have them name comics and movies they like. You can explore simular themes modified to fit your characters.

 

Good luck and have fun.

[Hermit]

Re: Any campaign suggestions?

 

Originally posted by McCoy

 

I usually start with a Master Villian, one responsable for much that goes wrong, whose identity the players will untangle over the course of months. Last time it was Dark Beast, before that Enchantress, Ultron, Nimrod, Rev Striker, the Hellfire Club, Magneto, etc. One sucessful one was when I used Apocalypse; he was stealing DNA form various sources and cloning technology, but as they finally uncovered his plan he was cloning certain mutants and sending them beyound the reach of the Sentinels.

 

What about an origin? I've had characters rescued by a Sponsor, pulled together by a common enemy, just happened to be there when the first domino fell. Any sugestions?

Sounds like you're using the Marvel Universe as your setting, is that right?

 

Have you tried a Fantastic Four sort of origin, that is, the characters all know each other before they gain their powers? Or at least gain their powers at the same time and place?

IF Your players are cool with a common origin, then try something like this...

A mastermind villain seeks to find someone who can become his shocktroops against an established NPC super hero team. Rather than rely on some greedy mercenaries, or incompetent ego maniacs, he decides to make his own.

 

He picks some random individuals who have one thing in common... the greatest genetic probablity to survive his empowerment process. This will be followed by brainwashing...

 

But something will, of course, go wrong. Leaving your PCs empowered, and free willed. The heroes might resent the villain who made this attempt... and he might want to destroy what he has wrought. You now have a PCs/NPC villain grudge.

[altamaros]

I used once this plot (even if it didn't go very far) :

 

All the PCs are caught on the scene by a camera in some corporate building/facility/etc... . they fight an unidentified ennemy (villain ?) and won over him/her but the Ennemy detonates a explosive device and the whole building is blown out.

 

Only problems :

1 - the PCs don't know each other

2 - they were all elsewhere at this time

 

The videotape is shown on TV News, the Company wants explanations, etc...

 

The logical reaction of the PCs should be to track each other and gather to understand the whole thing.

 

If your campaign allows time travel (it was my case) the PCs are to be sucked into a distant future/past a few adventures after (through a device found in the ruins of the factory), meet the villain, confront him/her.

The villain is then made to think that Earth is beginning to be increasingly dangerous and decide to travel back to the PC's time to trigger a doomsday bomb. The PCs follow him/her and prevent the plot. (the survival of the PCs are up to you)

 

If your campaign allows alternate earths, you can use counterparts to the PCs (who are a vilainous team ) hunting the PCs and commiting crimes together.

 

hope this help

[assault]

My standard joke is: the Good Guys aren't.

 

I'm halfway through a campaign design at the moment, so I can't give you a decent example without changing it tomorrow.

 

A "work in progress" idea is that there is a separation between "Blue Masks" ("Red, White and Blue Masks") and "Black Masks" (non-sanctioned supers - heroes, villains or whatever).

 

Are your PCs Blue Masks or Black Masks? What happens when they run into members of the other faction, even if the other faction are "heroes" too?

 

My campaign probably won't use this concept, because I think it is actually a bit more American than my campaign tends to be.

 

A more general answer to your problem is: if you are playing with people that you weren't playing with twenty years ago, they don't remember the stories you told back them. Even if they were around back then, it was a very long time, and they have probably forgotten. If they haven't, consider it to be a tribute to a "classic story".

 

In short, don't stress. Old jokes are often good jokes.

 

Alan

[Yogzilla]

Since it does seem as though your past games revolve around the Marvel Universe, here's my favorite campaign idea for pre-existing gameworlds (I'll stick with Marvel for this example)...

 

Last summer, during one of those seemingly-annual bruhahas (sp?), every single participant suddenly disappeared. Heroes, villians, sidekicks - - all gone!

 

Now, a new threat has arisen - - say, a Skrull invasion. But the Avengers, FF, et al are gone. Who will save us?

 

Enter the Watcher (who you know will interfere all the while saying he's forbidden to do so). He summons those who are best suited to deal with the current crisis (i.e. the PCs), and equips them with immediately identifiable items/powers...

-Thor's hammer (1 PC *must* be worthy)

-Cap's shield

-a suit of Iron Man armor

-access to the Enigma Force (aka Captain Universe)

-etc

 

So, the campaign is two-fold - - stop the invasion, and figure out what happened to the heroes (and why is all their stuff still here?).

 

Want to switch to DC? Replace accordingly...

-GL Power Ring

-Dr Fate's helmet

-Hawkman/Girl's wings

-Batman's utility belt

-etc etc

 

The upside is PCs get to play favorite characters, but with their own spin (i.e. Thor as a rapper, a fashion model as Iron "Man", etc etc). Downside, of course, is the powers are pre-set - - but a good player should easily be able to overcome that. After all, the heart of a character is the *character*, not the power-set.

 

Anyway, that's my thoughts.

 

-Yogzilla

[Tom McCarthy]

When stumped, I tend to turn to my favorite comic books and look for what I liked about the story (ie., generated the most character insights).

 

Some ideas (many of which echo from above):

 

Future Imperfect - the heroes are summoned to the future to overthrow evil future versions of themselves. This can be the first time the team forms (and sets a curious tone for the series - we teamed up knowing we will eventually become evil and need to be destroyed).

 

Contest of Champions - the heroes are drawn together to serve a cosmically powerful entity in service against another cosmically powerful entity. They are forced to learn to work together in a setting with limited risk; the heroes they fight are unlikely to go for the jugular. Indeed, they should look to team up with their opposite numbers to prevent either cosmic manipulator from winning. A little lighter weight in importance is having the heroes all taken prisoner for gladiatorial games in space, such as happened to the Thing in an early FF story arc, though the PCs may find themselves in mortal danger.

 

Kang Dynasty - Have the heroes got what it takes to repel an extra-dimensional conqueror ? This one carries the implication that the heroes are the biggest guns on the planet. It may be necessary to have the invaders have contingencies which neutralize many established heroes, leaving this relatively new team unscathed.

 

Exiles - The team is forced together to perform damage control on catastrophically offbeat alternate dimensions. The attractions are clear; you can introduce a villain and almost immediately he is familiar, but players must watch to see what is different. Is his motivation different, or his identity behind the mask, or his powers ? Heroes turned villain and vice versa are popular, and you can easily establish the credibility of a threat by having them destroy that alternate Earth's major hero(es).

 

Planetary - It's a skewed world, where many superheroes operate quietly, and some very powerful reflections of known Marvel and DC heroes operate as black ops agents, secret masters of the government, conspirators, and amoral exploiters of their own power.

 

Other unusual elements: X-Statix levels of mortality and PC death, Authority-style wide screen mayhem, Claremont/Byrne X-Men team restructuring with new members clashing with old and challenging existing philosophies and ideals

 

From the above, I like the appeal of the scenarios that force the heroes to work together, but understand the challenges inherent in doing so. Players would rather be summoned to the mansion of some rich crippled recluse and be given a stipend, room and board while they await the next bank robbery to foil.

[BlackCobra]

HQ Places We've Used:

 

Offices -- when the premise of the group was a detective agency (made the supers legal and it fit their motif). The office was heavily modified with reinforced walls and windows -- which didn't help much when a penetrating-attack sniper shot my character through my specially-reinforced window. But that's another story.

 

Top of a Corporate Building (Openly) - pretty much the standard HQ of corporate-sponsored super-heroes.

 

Top of a Corporate Building (Secretly) - the corporation wanted to limit liability and collateral costs (damage) and so our HQ was very open -- across town. Our real HQ was at the top of one of their other buildings and we all had to be very careful about showing up there Heroicly. It put quite a different spin on having a spiffy HQ when we could only show up there in "civilian" clothes and generally couldn't bring people back there. Anytime we wanted to meet someone, we directed them to our public HQ (that small office across town). I think there was a tunnel or teleport or something between them so that we could pull it off easier, but I'm not sure.

 

HQ Building -- the superheroes I ran just recently had their own HQ building taking up a whole block in Hudson City (it was a 4-color campaign set in the Dark Champions city). This was nice, but a little boring.

 

Galactic HQ -- in the Galactic Defense Corps game I played in, we had a large-planet-sized base. We needed space travel to go anywhere (but that was the premise). The campaign twist was that we were recruited on our home planets and when we showed up the base was empty. Thousands of galactic-level supers missing is a lot frightening, let me tell you.

 

Places we HAVEN'T used:

 

I always rather liked the old victorian home (not mansion) described in the Mystic Masters book. If you haven't seen it, it had regular rooms (living room, kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms) some a little off-kilter (such as the bedroom with no electricity, but working gas lights). It also had a whole 3rd floor when one didn't show on the outside. It was fun. And if one of the characters inheirits it from some dead uncle, but doesn't have any mystical abilities or knowledges, it would be an interesting twist.

 

A large vehicle could also make a great base. I've always wanted to run a pulp-era superhero team based out of a zepplin (with helium, hopefully). It's quiet (mostly), it's big (you can have fights on the outside!), it's slow (which means you have nice down-time) and it can go anywhere.

 

Ships make nice bases, too. Even if the campaign is focused on a specific city, it can make an interesting space just sitting tied-up to a dock somewhere.

 

And then there's the really wild -- a different dimension. If you've ever seen that D&D spell Magnificent Mansion (or it's other variations), I think a simple gate located in an alley somwhere that leads to a palace subdimension would be really fun. It would also give you a host of subplots and odd things to bring into the campaign. Building it with the base rules would be interesting. What would the location modifier be? Oh, look, Steve added "In another dimension" to the table. It would also give you the ability to add exits/entrances to allow the team to get places around town quicker and easier than their power level could really handle. And the disadvantages are almost endless....Watched (extradimensional forces), Dependent NPCs (ghost servants?), accidental change?

 

There's some ideas -- now I want to run/play something myself...sigh.

[Tamashii2000]

Originally posted by McCoy

How about Headquarters? Done the mansion, the school, the undersea and orbital research stations, the hospital, the mall, where have your teams hung out?

 

I once had the PC take over a former villians groups base, AFTER they had to 'evict' said former tenents. It came back to haunt them as the villian group in fact knew the base better then the PC's did.

 

Ohh yeah, the location... under one of the police dept.

[Enforcer84]

I did a teen team thing where the kids were based out of one of their parents' basements for a while.

[altamaros]

Originally posted by McCoy

How about Headquarters? Done the mansion, the school, the undersea and orbital research stations, the hospital, the mall, where have your teams hung out?

 

For my team (as a player, i'm a GM with another group), we live in a jailhouse !!

 

Our campaign is based on the old DC's Suicide Squad stories : the PCs are all "former" supervillains taken as (hum) executives from a secret UNO organisation.

 

For the other team (as a GM) the headquarter is a former temple of a Evil Cult under a church (the priest is a DNPC).

[death tribble]

You could always start the focus on one PC.

 

They have no idea who they are and what their powers are. But someone does and wants them captured/killed PDQ. As they flee they meet the other heroes.

 

I went to my GM once with this. I gave a background that I had no idea who I was and what had happened. Simply I woke up in a room or hotel room and looked in the mirror. The face looking back at me was not my face, nor my body. I remembered a completely different look and working in a bank or company. So who was I now ? The character found some notes and diary entries and pursued these. They also found that they knew what the time was without recourse to a watch.

 

The idea requires work with the GM. ut can be fun.

[Super Squirrel]

Originally posted by McCoy

How about Headquarters? Done the mansion, the school, the undersea and orbital research stations, the hospital, the mall, where have your teams hung out?

First A.C.T. in Harbour Side City is in a 24 Floor High-Rise Building with 6 Sub-Floors.

 

Second A.C.T. is in a retrofitted warehouse next to an airport. The floor is fake and used to store the team vehicle.