Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

[Hermit]

Either you don't have the time or players for FTF, or already have too many campaigns running as it is, or you don't have as much confidence in your abilities to be an online GM for HERO Central or something... but you STILL have a bunch of ideas of Champions Campaign starts you'd like to try.

 

What do you do? What DO you do?

 

Well, if you're like me, you decide to throw them out on the forums and maybe someone else will like them and it will bring them a little joy at least.

 

Some Champion Campaign ideas I've had (not all of them original to say the least):

After Ragnorok- Ragnorok came, gods died, monsters were felled, Baldur returns and...

Well, Midgard had in the mean time found new gods, and the disconnect meant it didn't suffer along with the Norse gods at all. That's right, the surviving Norse gods discover humanity has gone it's own way, rendering their glorious battle ... inconsequential. The norns cast the runes, and read the bones... it's clear, the survivors must go to Midgard and try to adapt to this new world, else Asgard will fade into nothingness for lack of the connection. What better way to do so than join these new 'superheroes' so admired?

 

Fur Justice!- In the time honored versions of Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew, the players' characters are in a world where cartoon animals reign supreme! But not all fish, fowl, and furries are on the side of justice, and the fiendish felons, be they furred, feathered, or finned are sure to keep our heroes busy.

 

Heroes Amok- Inspired, of course, by the excellent Villainy Amok. Almost each and every scenerio in the book is used (perhaps one as a way to get the team together in the first place), and since the scenerios are so fluid, even if the players have their own copies, only the GM knows which variation he's using.

 

The Seven- In a world where the super hero is a dying breed, and unappreciated in the America which spawned the type, two super heroes are approached by the citizens of a poor nation unable to defend itself from super villains who live cushily off their hard earned efforts. The villains don't rule the place, that would be too much work, but they might as well. They can't pay much, but the locals do at least offer the superheroes one last chance to use their powers and be appreciated for it. The two find five other heroes, who , for their own reasons, join up. Only once they are there do they discover the odds are very much against them. They should choose to run, instead, they decide to be Magnificent.

(And a big thanks to certain samuraii and cowboy films)

 

T.R.A.M.P.- Tactical Retribution and Assault Maidens of Power!

Black Leather, Big Guns, Things that go Stabby, and outfits that cover less than the weaponry they sometimes carry, these are just some of the traits of the women of T.R.A.M.P. An iron age parody where all the players run superpowered girlz out to show that it's no longer a man's world. Finally, looks can kill!

 

There's more in my head, but I'll come back later.

 

So, anyone else got some ideas they don't have the time for but would like to share?

[Hermit]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Guess not.

 

Ya bums.

 

[Mutant for Hire]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

T.R.A.M.P.- Tactical Retribution and Assault Maidens of Power!

Black Leather, Big Guns, Things that go Stabby, and outfits that cover less than the weaponry they sometimes carry, these are just some of the traits of the women of T.R.A.M.P. An iron age parody where all the players run superpowered girlz out to show that it's no longer a man's world. Finally, looks can kill!

Bad news, Hermit, but this has already been done. The infamous "Macho Women with Guns" game which had as sequels "Renegade Nuns on Wheels" and "Batwinged Bimbos from Hell" with disads like 'topheavy' and skills like 'run in high heels'.

[Hermit]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Bad news' date=' Hermit, but this has already been done. The infamous "Macho Women with Guns" game which had as sequels "Renegade Nuns on Wheels" and "Batwinged Bimbos from Hell" with disads like 'topheavy' and skills like 'run in high heels'.[/quote']

 

Actually, come to think of it, while I've never played the game, I HAD heard of it, and think that's where it must have come from. Credit where credit is due. Thanks

[hooligan x]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

I have been dying to run a Gaslight Supers game. If for nothing else, just for the bad cockney accents my players would use.

After reading Proditor's War of the Worlds article, I am even more in love with this idea.

[Korvar]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Champions: 2099 - based off the cyberpunky Marvel comics.

 

I have been dying to run a Gaslight Supers game. If for nothing else, just for the bad cockney accents my players would use.

After reading Proditor's War of the Worlds article, I am even more in love with this idea.

 

Some friends of mine ran an Aberrant/Space 1889 cross they called "Hope and Glory" - I am reliably informed it was a blast.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

I have been dying to run a Gaslight Supers game. If for nothing else, just for the bad cockney accents my players would use.

After reading Proditor's War of the Worlds article, I am even more in love with this idea.

Yeah the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen martian invasion story got me going too.

(I'm assuming that's what proditors article at least peripherially touched on)

[Lumbering Ox]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Have the players make either normal characters, or themselves in hero format. Don't set a point limit, tell them balance won't really matter much, it will all even out in the end. Normal 2005 characters in a normal world.

 

Then give them superpowers based on what you think the player might like/like his character to have, don't tell them any details though. It will require you to do much more paperwork and rolling. Let them discover what they can. How they get the powers, up to you.

 

Toss something weird at them.

1: Leave them as the only supers in the real world.

2: Toss them into another reality, Twilight 2000, Call of Cuthulhu, Price of Freedom, Star Trek, LOTR whatever floats your and their boats.

3: They got powers by aliens to fight other aliens

4: Send them back into real world history [more interesting if they are playing themselves] what do they do. Ignore paradoxes.

4a: Have being who gave them powers give them a choise of missions in the past real world, their job is to change history, for whatever reason.

5: One of a bunch of supers who woke up with powers in the real world.

 

I had the design normal people, give them unknown powers thing done to me, only lasted one session, but it was rather neat. Could go anywhere with it really.

[Hermit]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

They got powers by aliens to fight other aliens

 

I like this one.

[Kirby]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

I would like to run a game where the PC's all have NCM and they're all UNTIL agents, taking the various package deals from Until: Defenders of Freedom. I'd like to be able to accept whoever applies (as long as they stick to the guidelines) whether it's four people or twenty-four. The idea behind the concept is that UNTIL is creating a special task force with all volunteers. The one bick "kick" is that if the character dies, the player is out.

 

When the game begins, the players start out attacking a VIPER nest or two, followed by a DEMON cell and then on to stopping a rampaging super (Grond or Gargantua would be nice, if there are 10 or more PCs).

 

Finally, the group is gathered and set to go on a mission, but something happens (either the villain attacks first, or a transportation device goes awry, or something) and the PCs are taken back 65 million+ years. Now, every "charge" in your weapon counts. The first scene would be the same as U: DoF where the many T-Rexes are attacking.

 

Problem is, I don't know what I'd do after that.

[Korvar]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Are there any Champions Universe sentient races about at the time? They could eventually be found, and they could conveniently have something to hurl the team forward...

 

...to the Valdorian Age

[mvoncannon]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Are there any Champions Universe sentient races about at the time? They could eventually be found, and they could conveniently have something to hurl the team forward...

 

...to the Valdorian Age

 

Crappit! Another idea stolen.

 

I have done this to some extent and it has worked well. Especially when they use their power and find that they have changed a bit.

[Kirby]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

I don't know. I don't have Star HERO or Galactic Champions or any books from that genre that would tell me (though I'd love to play in it and have reason to purchase them).

 

Another idea I've been thinking of is have the PC's be Special Forces from the various US military branches (maybe 100-150 total points) and have them do sort of the same thing or have them go after supernatural creatures, with the understanding that the civilian world isn't supposed to get wind that these creatures exist. Or maybe have their sole purpose be designed to take down VIPER or DEMON.

 

A third campaign idea I can't use yet is "Adventure #2" for my FtF game. Two players (dating) dropped without word in August and of the two remaining, one hasn't responded to e-mails this past week. The last loves to game, including Champions even though she never read comics!

[Hermit]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

What of the Empyearans or the Progenitors who altered them?

[sinanju]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

I keep toying with the idea of launching the Prineville! campaign. I even proposed it as a GGU campaign at one point but ultimately decided that getting NPCs vetted and audited and whatnot was more trouble than I was willing to go through given that I could run it just as easily as a standalone campaign on Yahoo or Hero Central if I really wanted.

 

Prineville! is modeled on Smallville. The PCs are all Teen Champions with weird powers and would mostly be fighting other teens or non-powered bad guys. Prineville is known as the per capita capital of the US for miscarriages, stillbirths and birth defects, though no one has been able to determine the cause (rumors of radioactive meteor rocks notwithstanding....). Though a few older kids have minor abilities (mixed with definite drawbacks and limitations--think Jokers from the Wild Cards novels), the PCs are the first real supers to appear in Prineville.

 

There's a common cause for all of it--the miscarriages, stillbirths and birth defects, "jokers" and now the PC supers. But nobody knows what it is. Part of the campaign would involve the PCs slowly discovering who or what is behind it all, along with figuring out their own powers, learning to deal with others superpowered teens, and deciding how to handle the possibility of public exposure (do they want to go public? remain unseen? develop secret IDs?).

[SKJAM!]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Cherry Blossom Theatre

 

Basically, a wild Martial Arts Hero campaign; all "powers" come from some form of combat training. I tried to run it back in the day, but the player group each and every one wanted to be the "exception" to the setting.

[Fedifensor]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Well, I've been wanting to run my Catalyst (http://www.peakpeak.com/~fedifensor/games/hero/catalyst.htm) campaign for a while now. It's a fairly standard superhero world, although it makes an effort to justify the time-honored superhero conventions (wearing masks, causing property damage without being arrested, reluctance to kill supervillains, etc). It also builds on many elements from my previous Champions campaigns. I've talked about it on these boards in the past, and I got as far as running one session before I realized I didn't have the time to flesh it out in the detail I wanted. So, it's been sitting on the back burner for over a year.

 

I also played in a short campaign where the characters were all kids (pre-teens and teenages) genetically engeneered by a secret government organization with nefarious motivations. We got as far as escaping from the compound before the game ended due to real-life issues. Something like that would be fun to play.

[Kirby]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

I would like to be a player in a campaign for "reformed villains." I've been able to play Grond in a futuristic pbem campaign (where Grond was put into stasis and revived decades later), but that seems to be on hiatus now.

 

I would like to play Icicle either as a teenager, or reforming (maybe forced to be a hero like Thunder & Lightning from 4E).

[Chuckg]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

(repost of an old post on the Star Hero board)

 

The plans were nixed due to unavailability of players, but I was planning on running a 'start strong and built up to epic' Terran Empire campaign where the PCs start out as semi-outcasts and end up saving the Empire. We'd even gotten character generation done before scheduling intervened.

 

The plan starts with a senior figure in Imperial intelligence/counter-intelligence who decides that in order to best get the job done without higher levels of corrupt oversight, he needs his own Suicide Squad. And with that many planets full of people to go through, and that many prisons, finding suitably dependable candidates shouldn't be that hard.

 

Edit -- the whole point of the campaign was that all of the PCs (save two) were people who were in prison but *weren't* bad people -- a little selfish, maybe, a little impulsive, maybe, but not callous criminals.

 

No cortex bombs, no shock collars -- just a promise of good pay and an eventual pardon... or life without parole on the worst prison moon in the universe if they skip out and are later found.

 

And Colonel Mendoza would've made damn sure they understood, they *would* eventually be found.

 

The player characters would have been:

 

 

* "Red" -- a former corporal in the Imperial Army, Red was serving a life sentence for murder due to a death in a brawl. It was all done wrong... he was actually saving a girl from being assaulted, but the guy with the gun who's neck he had to break had powerful friends. If you've seen "Con Air", you've pretty much seen the origin story. Red was the group's STR 25 (with cyberware) combat specialist.

 

Reason picked -- military training and discipline, and psych profile indicated he wasn't the criminal type at all and would do anything to clear out his record.

 

* "Lisa" -- Allegedly in prison for unlicensed possession of psionic powers and fraud, 'Lisa' was actually an undercover Mind Police officer. A talented detective and an 8d6 Telepath (Empathy Only), she was there both to contribute her expertise, and to make sure the group didn't run. Lisa would have been the group's detective and psion.

 

Well, Colonel Mendoza *did* say he'd find them.

 

Reason picked -- heh.

 

* 'Dr. Shannon Forrester'-- According to her prison records, Shannon was an Exploration Corps scientist, serving fifteen years for unauthorized access to *very* classified records.

 

Actually, she was an experimental AI -- a computer brain implanted in an organic human body -- undergiong final testing. A minimum-security prison had been chosen as the perfect controlled, limited, and heavily monitored social environment for the first socialization run, and a phony background had been made to match.

 

Problem is, nobody had told Colonel Mendoza. So she was yanked out on an Intelligence priority and given the offer before her own controllers knew what was going on.

 

Note -- not all of the above is true, but it's what the player was told. Dr. Forrester was a GM-created PC, and the player who took her knew they were volunteering for a 'Mystery PC' plot.

 

Reason picked -- computer hacking talents combined with (according to records) a very pliable nature and a perfect behavioral record.

 

"Zack" -- the typical hot-shot pilot, Zack was in prison for 20 years' on pretty much every smuggling charge there was.

 

Reason picked -- he's damn talented, and damn desperate to get out of the box, and has a record of not killing people or using unnecessary violence. Also a bit of a coward.

 

"Sadie" -- think '27th-century' catwoman. This daring thief and con woman was one of the slickest in a dozen systems, as well as being a talented martial artist.

 

Resaon picked -- a very impressive resume, and a high confidence in the abilities of Detective Lisa to keep her from oozing out the window first chance she got.

 

 

 

 

The plot would have come in three stages...

 

1) Intro action/spy adventures, working for Colonel Mendoza. Gradual foreshadowing of phase 2, as well as high-level corruption in the Empire.

 

Discovery that "Dr. Forrester" is in fact some type of android.

 

2) Their Patron is disgraced/imprisoned. They're cut off, out in the cold. It's fugitive time.

 

As they run, they discover signs that a horrible conspiracy is slowly taking over the Empire. Whether they want to deal with or not, this conspiracy sees them as a threat (due to something they apparently picked up in phase 1).

 

Eventually, they'll discover that "Dr. Forrester" (if she's still alive -- if not, run in an NPC) is one of many 'Daryl'-type organic androids with computer brains seeded in various positions throughout the empire. These androids work for the master villain. A programming glitch had freed Dr. Forrester.

 

3) The PCs, by this point, should have enough motivation to do the right thing and go in to save the Empire and the Empress, because by this point the conspirator has made his move and placed the Empress under the control of his enslaver nanites.

 

And then the curtain goes up, and in the style of the 'Great Darkness Saga', the curtain raises to reveal...

 

... Dr. Albert Zerstoiten.

 

Who had cryogenically preserved himself in the early 21st century and has arisen, weakeend but still horribly dangerous, to try and enslave the 27th.

 

*WHAM*

 

And the good Doctor drops the hammer on them, Darkseid style.

 

4) I was still writing Phase Four of the campaign, aka 'the heroes make it all the way back and finally wipe Dr. Destroyer's behind', when the scheduling conflicts folded the campaign.

 

[Ah-nuld]

"Remember when I said there vere only three stages? I lied."

[/Ah-nuld]

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Planet Fall

Two pre-colony ships are sent through a wormhole located at the edge of Earth's Solar System after it is determined that the wormhole is two way and that there is a planet safe for humans. Unbeknownst to the colonists, the planet was once occupied by an alien race and beneath the planet's surface exists ancient artifacts. One of these artifacts includes a massive energy generator. This generator causes an unstable mutation in 10% of all humans giving them super powers.

 

The plan is to send two seperate colony groups to the planet. One will go to the eastern edge of the continent, the other will go to the western edge of the continent. Both colony ships will detach the passanger model and land it as near as possible to their corresponding ideal colony location (Site A). In case of problems, each colony ship has a secondary location that has been picked out as a suitable location for a colony (Site . Also, each colony ship is equipped with two equipment models that will be dropped to land roughly in locations near the two primary colonization spots.

 

Unfortunately, a solar storm causes the planet fall to go less than pleasant. The Player's Passanger Ship lands off course and one of their equipment units is dropped on top of a mountain range. The other one is accessable but is not in an easy to reach location.

 

The other passanger ship has a worse time. The ship lands without problem and the cargo lands relatively near their intended locations. The passanger ship lands closer to the buried energy generator. They suffer from 25% mutations and many people do not survive the mutation. This includes the Captain whose mutation turns him into a living shadow. Also the higher exposure to radiation corrupts many of the colonists. The military chain of command crumbles into a dictatorship. Those in charge of their crew realize that if they take out the other colony, when the colony ship arrives three years from now, they will be unaware of the situation planet side. When the ten thousand colonists arive, they can use them to build a total dictatorship and completely control the planet.

 

The players have three years timeline wise to completely build a colony that is ready to handle 10,000 colonists and at the same time deal with the threat facing them from the other side of the continent.

[assault]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Kirby World!

The PCs are caught up in the struggle between two groups of powerful, almost godlike entities. They may be members of one (or both!) groups, humans, or maybe even just "normal" Earth superhumans.

 

The warring sides could be terrestrial "Hidden Lands" groups like the Empyreans and Lemurians, Aliens (Kree and Skrulls?), or even magical entities (Aesir and Giants/Trolls?). Or some combination - say Empyreans versus Space Dudes?

 

The world looks like it was drawn by Jack Kirby.

 

The Transplutonian Worldlets

Not really a separate campaign, but rather an element in another one, such as the one above...

 

Eons ago, the Forerunners messed with the human gene pool. Some of the resulting superhumans were transported to artificial worlds out beyond Pluto. Other such worlds were settled by more "alien" lifeforms, such as a shapeshifting species (Skrull or Durlan types).

 

These worlds are, of course, reachable from Earth without necessarily requiring faster than light travel, although that helps. There are good reasons why Earth is the focus for so much attention from "aliens".

 

If one of these worldlets was to be destroyed, it is entirely reasonable that a scientist might put his only child in a rocket and send it to Earth...

 

Obviously, these worldlets just beg to be used in a Kirby World game, but could be useful in other contexts.

[Lumbering Ox]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

How about a James Bondish type caimpaign it would have to be solo, but still.

 

Either in Champs, or FH.

[Korvar]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

"We're going to play a Gangbusters campaign! Hard-bitten Private Eyes! Speakeasies! Gangster's Molls! High Society!" ...and don't tell anyone it's actually a Call of Cthulhu campaign.

[Super Squirrel]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

I thought of this idea in an attempt to come up with a Dark Champions game that I could get people interested in.

 

Players build a 50 + 50 base character. The character's age is between 13 and 20 years old. Disadvantages are restricted to Distinctive Features (For Fashion Style or Tattoos if applicable) Physical Limitations, and Physical Limitations. EGO is important.

 

Then the players get a secret power and a massive hunted bringing the character to a total of 75+75. The secret power is, well, a summon.

 

The story background was going to go something like this. The players give me their character sheets and I determine a point in their upbringing that they were kidnapped. They are taken to a secret facility in which they begin undergoing a brainwashing plus strange ritual. The players were intended to be the ultimate assassins until the start of the first game when a NPC stages a breakout. The first game would be the breakout and discovery of their powers.

[Kirby]

Re: Sharing the Campaign ideas you can't use... yet

 

Sounds like it could be fun.