Starting A New DC Campaign

[Mister E]

I need help.

 

I'm starting a new campaign...

 

It's going to be the premier campaign for a fresh new world that I'm introducing the players to. I don't want there to be any prior history of super-heroing, or otherwise colorful/flashy, themed or custumed heroes. This is intended to make the player's characters the first of a new breed of modern-day mystery-men/vigilantes hunting the streets of America's Cities.

 

The begining of the campaign will focos on one particular city, that is extremely corrupt at all levels of government and industry, full of violent criminals, and is generally in really bad shape.

 

Later on down the line, I will introduce superheroes to the world, but that is neither here nor there...

 

Anyhow... my players are very excited about making lethal, heroic level, characters for the game... but they (and I) are having a hard time figuring out how to get the characters to get together to found a team.

 

???

My question for you, (the estemed, and learned, posters of the HERO GAMES Discussion Boards), is what kinds of cool ideas can you come up with, on ways to form a modern vigilante team, composed of the usual loner-type personalities that you would normally find in a Dark Champions campaign?

???

 

IN CLOSING: I think this thread could be a useful resource for other GM's starting their own new campaigns... but, as long as I get the help I need to start mine, that's all that really matters.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

That is the job of the GM. And the idea is to start off the first game with each players as loners. Create a case that each of the players skills can contribute to but all players are needed to solve it. Work on them each one at a time in turn at first. If you have an even number of players get them paired of by running into each other in groups of two. If you have an odd number, make on of the groups a group of three. Also instruct the players it is important that their characters be willing to work with others. If carefully constructed, the players will find that working together was beneficial and have a reason to stick together.

[Hawknight]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

If you have access to the Dark Champions 5E, it has sections including the background on LIBRA that may help you.

 

Some other "hooks"...

 

1) Terrorists take over a building and kill some of the hostages. Your PCs could be related to the slain and band together to stop this from happening ever again.

 

2) In a city of dirty cops, the good cops could band together to stop criminals and bad cops alike to protect and serve.

 

3) All the PCs could have been saved by a mystery man who is wounded and demands repayment of his saving them by having them band together and take over protecting the city.

 

4) The individual PCs who are specialists in their fields all recieve a mysterious letter telling them to meet somewhere. When the PCs arrive, a gang war breaks out that they must stop. Their benifactor appears after and funds their team to clean up the crime in the city.

 

 

Hope this helps.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

Make them sign a document like the following:

 

 

"I solomly swear that despite the fact my character is a 'loner' that I will be willing to join a group of individuals to form a team. I sacrifice my desire to work alone in favor of having solid party dynamics. I also swear not to keep secrets from my party unless they are directly related to a disadvantage. I agree that should I violate any term in this clause that the GM has the right to withhold my experience."

[Agent X]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

If they all have a very different expertise, you can pull the 'mysterious figure brings them together for a mission' bit - or one of the player-characters could get the group together. Or maybe they were all part of the same spy/military/whatever unit at one time.

[Guest darthvegita666]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

they need to all know each toher like they are ex military buddies or something

 

'joe, gotham is just too dirty and corrupt"

"yup"

"somebodys gotta do something about it"

'yup"

"and by somebody i mean us, and by do somethin, i mean kill people"

"yup'

[Trebuchet]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

The supers in our new DC campaign bumped into each other during the course of their investigation of a series of church arsons, and once they'd established their bona fides with each other decided to work together to stop the criminal or criminals responsible. They bought walkie talkies at Radio Shack to stay in touch, and have agreed to a nightly meeting at midnight on the roof of the city's cathedral. At this point I doubt they'll ever be an official team; just an ad hoc group of three heroes (with only two present at each adventure).

[Brother Dom]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

There is a wide range of examples from TV, Movies, and Books.

 

From TV you got the A-Team ( you darken it a bit and hvae people actually get shot). There was one called Dark Justice ( a judge seeking revenge for the murder of his family) the team was a former crimminals.

 

Movies ya get Sneakers, Mission Impossible, and too many blacksploitation films .

 

Books MACK BOLAN!!!! NUFF SAID!!! Basically the Able Team & Phoenix Force.

 

These are just some that should help you out I.....hope.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

One good way to make players stick together is to have an outside threat that they cannot defeat on their own. An outside threat that is a clear and present danger to their lives.

 

Maybe a villain has decided that these new street vigilantes are a bad thing, good job they work alone - he can beat any one of them, possibly any two. If he dedicates himself to the task the streets will be his before his 40th birthday. What a nice present that would be.

 

Perhaps a Lex Luthor style viallain would be better, luring these do-gooders into traps and killing them off.

 

I would even consider having them all draw up two character ideas at the start to get it straight in their head that this is _dark_ champions and their character could die - you don't want to waste time generating a new character in the middle of a game. This would allow me to kill any character that doesn't play ball without damaging the game for everyone else.

 

 

Doc

[CSgeekHero]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

You should examine some history of groups like The Guardian Angels. They are a bunch of people who got fed up with the criminals coming around and destroying their neighborhood. So, they set out to deter crime and assist the police.

 

If your group is going to be a bunch of pro-active vigilantes, they could see groups like that as not going far enough and start their own group. Inside the group, some could know each other and some could see what the first members are doing and go sign up. Their reasons could range from outrage at crime in general, to righting a wrong done to them or someone close to them.

 

Those reasons for hooking up could be as dark, distrubing, and brutal as you deem fit.

[Mister E]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

There are some great ideas here. I've rep'd everyone except for Agent-X, (I need too spread it around, first. ) for the thoughtful, and helpful, contributions.

 

The campaign is still a few weeks away from starting, so if anyone has any more juicy good stuff for me, I'd love to see it.

 

AS A SIDE NOTE: I just picked up Hudson City, and I highly recommend checking it out, if you plan to run a DC's or Champions game. It is a excellent setting book, full of detailed gritty/realistic urban city source matterial. I will no doubt get a lot of mileage out of it, in the years to come.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Starting A New DC Campaign

 

One old DC campaign we had a lot of fun with back in the day was our "Zombie Squad" game. The basic idea was that (much like your setting) the government had become so riddled with corruption that a highly placed yet still ethical govrmnet official with access to a large black ops budget set out to assemble a team that could operate "under the radar", doing the kinds of dirty jobs that needed done, but would offend the powers that be. Pretty standard so far. The thing that changed the tone a bit (and spawned the "Zombie Squad" moniker) was that all our characters "died" (ala You Only Live Twice) in the opening game. Our cover identities were to help conceal the fact that we were all legally dead.

Viper, my character, was the John Woo-esque gunslinger, who started the game as a DEA agent undercover in Columbia. My first session involved, in short order, my cover being blown, being captured, and being tortured very nearly to death.

I was mostly unconcious when the ops team rescued me and then literally blew the camp off the face of the earth (a tacnuke, IIRC).

 

It was a great game, although it did involved rewriting about half my disads after the game started, which was part of the GM's gameplan anyway.