Inspired campaign ideas.

[Funksaw]

I'm going to be running a HERO seminar soon and was wondering if people could come up with some not-terribly cliched roleplaying game settings/cliches which would work in the HERO system and capture the imagination of the players.

 

Here's a couple I've come up with:

 

1) A world where mad science has been secretly fueling the world's innovations since 1945...

 

2) A world where God only exists because people believe in him - and you play one of the creatures that only exists because some people believe in you...

 

3) The Lord of the Rings - where Hobbits are particularly known for Punk Rock, the big love interest is between Elvisgorn and Pricillwen, and magic is "manipulating the music of the spheres," Eowyn is the Backup Maiden of Rohan, and Gandalf coordinates the raid on the black gates from a Lead Zepplin.

[Gary Ciaramella]

Re: Inspired campaign ideas.

 

3) The Lord of the Rings - where Hobbits are particularly known for Punk Rock' date=' the big love interest is between Elvisgorn and Pricillwen, and magic is "manipulating the music of the spheres," Eowyn is the Backup Maiden of Rohan, and Gandalf coordinates the raid on the black gates from a Lead Zepplin.[/quote']

 

[sinanju]

Re: Inspired campaign ideas.

 

It's the contemporary world, but with hidden magic. Vampires, magic-users, werewolves, ghosts, the sidhe, everyone and everything. Power comes from control of sites where magic leaks into the world from (wherever you like). But all the existing ley lines or hellmouths or caerns or what have you have long since been seized and fortified. The "no vacancies" sign has been lit for centuries. Newbies vamps/mages/whatever can look forward to being powerless pawns of their elders for a long, long, long time--or to a brief and painful existence if they decide to try to seize the brass ring.

 

Then the cataclysm happened. Nobody is sure of exactly what happened, except that somebody tried to work some legendary mojo--and failed miserably.

 

Now most of the ley lines, hellmouths, etc. have either dried up or moved. The new locus of power (more and more powerful magical hotspots per square mile than have been seen in millennia) suddenly appears in CAMPAIGN CITY. And all the vamps/mages/whoever who were living in that city (including the established and very powerful one) were killed or so badly maimed that they're effectively out of the game for a very long time.

 

End result: a supernatural gold rush. Every vampire who ever chafed under the rule of his elders, every mage who tired of being a permanent apprentice, every werewolf who dreamed of striking out to create his own pack is descending on CAMPAIGN CITY, intent on carving out an empire (or at least a little piece of one) for himself. And the PCs are among them. It can be as bloody or as diplomatic/deceitful (or both) as the GM and players want it to be.

 

I did this a couple of years ago. Santa Carla was the center of my campaign(s) for years; then I created a plot that ended with the focus of magic shifting north to Seattle, WA. The PCs joined in the landgrab and it was a very entertaining game.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Inspired campaign ideas.

 

As Harold Brigthorpe, a long term comic fan boy, dies his brain is filled by all kinds of interesting ideas and dreams, some of which seem to last a very long time.

 

In one of them he is a superhero, with astonishing powers, righting wrongs and making up for the mediocrity of his life, joining together with friends and family (who also have superpowers) in a band of superfriends.

 

The world, and everything in it including the other PCs, is in fact a very detailed wish-fulfilment fantasy/dream that Harold is having in the last seconds of life.

 

It is probably important that the players don't know the truth.

 

You could do foreshadowing flashbacks (if that isn't a contradiction in terms) where the players are sitting round Harold's death bed - they are all real people in the 'real world' but given superpowers and a mission in his final moments of fevered imagination.

 

The point of the scenario is not to defeat the villain - there isn't one in reality - it is for Harold to come to terms with his mortality and make sense of his life and relationships on Earth - through the medium of a dream projection of his favourite subject - superhero comics. The defeat by or at the hands of the 'villain' should have deep symbolic meaning. He or she is a cypher.

 

Not easy to run, but is isn't cliched and it should make an interesting discussion topic as to how you can symbolically introduce themes like death and loss whilst still maintaining some aspect of hope and triumph and the redemption of the soul.

 

Of course then you have the mystery of what comes after death...could Harlold be re-incarnated in a world where such dreams are real?

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Inspired campaign ideas.

 

two quick thoughts popped into my head...

Post Apocalypse High Fantasy/Swords and Sorcery setting: Not of the Thundarr the Barbarian variety (High Magic setting in the future after a technological apocalypse) but rather more of a "Sauron won" type setting.

and in a simiar vein...

Post Apoc. Steampunk: This just came up today... I was listening to the musical version of War of the Worlds and thought to myself... "What would a campaign set in Victorian London be like in a world where the Martians didn't forget basic biology? Say, 10 years after the inital conquest?"

 

P.S. I LIKE the gods exist because people believe in them idea. I'm using something quite similar in my upcoming fantasy game

 

P.P.S. that'd make elves, what? Glam Hair Metal boys?