Teen Heroes- Guidelines?

[Guest cubist]

Hello all, just wondering when any of you out there create teen heroes, how many points do you base them on and what are the base stats like for them- do you allow for normal 10s to start or do you enforce them having justification for such high stats for teen characters??

 

Just wondering because in the past I've done higher powered teens and this time around I'm trying for 100+100 point teen heroes with lower stats than I'd normally give.

[Hermit]

I haven't run an 'all teen' hero game, so my teen super heroes are the same as my adult ones really. It might be unrealistic, but hey, the whole genre is on some points

[Monolith]

Champions Universe recommends 125+75, and then reaffirms the Active Point limit of 40 first mentioned in the Teen Champions section of Champions.

[Kristopher]

I'm doing the preliminary work on a "school for the gifted" campaign right now, and I have to wonder...

 

If the standard superhero is now 350 points, isn't 200 a little... anemic? It's actually down in the "hero" range, in FRED.

[Vondy]

I would think anywhere between 200 and 275 points would be good places to start, though I would probably come in on the higher end. I think the 40-50 active point range and slightly lower defenses would be about right, too.

 

My main concern with these games would be more in the nature of apropos psych lims and relevent adventures with the right tone. Teen angst without the bronze age body parts and routine lethal threats.

[Kristopher]

Originally posted by D-Man

I would think anywhere between 200 and 275 points would be good places to start, though I would probably come in on the higher end. I think the 40-50 active point range and slightly lower defenses would be about right, too.

 

My main concern with these games would be more in the nature of apropos psych lims and relevent adventures with the right tone. Teen angst without the bronze age body parts and routine lethal threats.

 

"Bronze age body parts?" Does this refer to extreme violence or revealing costumes?

[Vondy]

Originally posted by Kristopher

"Bronze age body parts?" Does this refer to extreme violence or revealing costumes?

 

I was thinking gore factor more that hussy factor.

[rjcurrie]

If you think 200 points is too low, use a higher base. Just like people who think 350 point supers creates too great a difference between supers and normals can use a lower base. Choose a base that will give you the power level you want in the campaign. That's what's really important. I think when Hero was talking teen heroes they were talking more about trying to simulate heroes that are still growing into their powers. If you want teens who are already powerful, use higher guidelines.

 

The important thing to remember that power levels are all suggestions. For instance, I don't like Active Point caps because they hamstring too many interesting powers. As a result, I just eyeball powers for whether I think they are too powerful for the campaign (and give some very general guidelines as to the power levels, I'm looking for).

 

What it all boils down to is that it is your campaign, do what you feel will give you the game you want. Decides what marks the differences between teen heroes and adult heroes in your world and create guidelines to achieve that feel.

 

Rod

[Kristopher]

Originally posted by rjcurrie

If you think 200 points is too low, use a higher base. Just like people who think 350 point supers creates too great a difference between supers and normals can use a lower base. Choose a base that will give you the power level you want in the campaign. That's what's really important. I think when Hero was talking teen heroes they were talking more about trying to simulate heroes that are still growing into their powers. If you want teens who are already powerful, use higher guidelines.

 

The important thing to remember that power levels are all suggestions. For instance, I don't like Active Point caps because they hamstring too many interesting powers. As a result, I just eyeball powers for whether I think they are too powerful for the campaign (and give some very general guidelines as to the power levels, I'm looking for).

 

What it all boils down to is that it is your campaign, do what you feel will give you the game you want. Decides what marks the differences between teen heroes and adult heroes in your world and create guidelines to achieve that feel.

 

Rod

 

My intent was just to kick the ideas around, and use other people's input to help me think this out. You're not really saying anything I don't know, I just hoped some discussion would help me solidify things.

 

That, and I like to question things. So, I questioned the recommended point totals for younger supers.

[rjcurrie]

Well, without knowing the type of campaign you want to run, it's hard to make specific suggestions.

[Kristopher]

Originally posted by rjcurrie

Well, without knowing the type of campaign you want to run, it's hard to make specific suggestions.

 

Part of what I want to deal with is the difference between these kids and their (supposed?) peers. How will they respond to the equivalent of walking around with military firepower all the time? Do they become arrogant? Distant? Afraid? Do they see their powers as a blessing, or a curse? Do see them as an easy ticket, or an extra responsibility? Do they listen to anyone they could easily hurt or kill?

 

Right now, I'm working with 300 pts because:

 

A) It _is_ 50 points less than FRED standard supers.

I often like esoteric, imaginative powers that end up costing a lot for their actual effect.

C) It allows some variation.

D) It makes them powerful enough that the question of how they respond to their power matters.

E) It leaves room for some other skills and stuff to round out the characters. (The electromagnetic manipulator took the Bump of Direction Talent as an internal magnetic compass, for example.)

[rjcurrie]

Based on your stated goals, I think 300 points is about the right level for your campaign. It's probably what I would use myself for many of the same reasons you stated.

 

I'm sorry if I sounded like I was preaching to the choir earlier, it's just that I see way too many people on this board who seem overly concerned with precisely following the guidelines suggested by the rule and genre books.

[MoonHunter]

Might I suggest...

 

I personally would start with a lower base and disad level 200 total). Experience should be "matched" by growth. Eventually these students will grow into their 350 point total hero forms. Each point of experience can be "matched" by either a point towards their base total OR points received by disadvantage. So a character has 5 experience points. They can then match them for 5 points of bonus OR take 5 points in a disad (bumping up their code vs killing for example). Matching ends when the character has a full base (150) and full disad totals (100): their total being 350+exp earned

 

In addition, I would allow characters who have not reached there maximimums yet (either in disad or base) to mutate their powers OR disadvantages at will, WITH PROPER STORY CAUSE. So a cocky, young hero becomes gun shy and with a serious protect innocent after a bad adventure. A young mutant wakes up one morning and become totally hairsuit... (puberty on overload), or after an appropriate scene with their power out of control, the character learns a new power level. What ever is appropriate.

[Kristopher]

Re: Might I suggest...

 

Originally posted by MoonHunter

I personally would start with a lower base and disad level 200 total). Experience should be "matched" by growth. Eventually these students will grow into their 350 point total hero forms. Each point of experience can be "matched" by either a point towards their base total OR points received by disadvantage. So a character has 5 experience points. They can then match them for 5 points of bonus OR take 5 points in a disad (bumping up their code vs killing for example). Matching ends when the character has a full base (150) and full disad totals (100): their total being 350+exp earned

 

In addition, I would allow characters who have not reached there maximimums yet (either in disad or base) to mutate their powers OR disadvantages at will, WITH PROPER STORY CAUSE. So a cocky, young hero becomes gun shy and with a serious protect innocent after a bad adventure. A young mutant wakes up one morning and become totally hairsuit... (puberty on overload), or after an appropriate scene with their power out of control, the character learns a new power level. What ever is appropriate.

 

150 experience points would take 30 game sessions at the rather generous rate of 5 xp/session. I honesty don't expect this campaign to last that long or run every week. I wish I could say otherwise, but one of my players expects to move away at the beginning of next year, and the other two have campaign ADD.

[assault]

Personally, I am rather fond of the recommended limits, but that is because I enjoy the solitaire aspects of character design, and you need some kind of "rules" for that. So if "the book" suggests 125+75 points for teen supers, I run with that and see what can be done. I also build 250 or 275 point characters as more experienced "X-Men" types. But that's just for my solo projects, which are about background and origin writing more than actual play. Of course, in theory, some of this stuff will eventually appear in an actual campaign...

 

In real campaigns, in my experience, character growth is actually fairly slow. 1 or 2 points per session is fairly normal, and for older folks like me, sessions aren't quite as frequent as they were way back when. So characters tend to stay pretty much how they start, which means that the players have to be happy with them. The points total for a game should allow that.

 

Because I have been playing "for a real long time", I'm fairly fond of 250 point characters. On the other hand 275-300 points gives a little more elbow room, especially for characters in teams that have a bit of standard equipment, plus some standardised training. At that point, there is no particularly obvious point to not going for 350 point characters, but these will tend to have considerably more power, rather than being merely more experienced versions of low-powered characters.

 

So, go with whatever you think is best. Of course, for character design exercises, go with strict limits so you are forced to learn to maximise what can be done within the system, preferably without resort to munchkinisation.

 

And of course: "Silly GM, points are for players".

 

Alan

(Almost happy with my 250 point Rogue-homage...)

[Killer Shrike]

Personally here is how I look at it:

 

Except for specific unified creation concepts where for some reason the only people that received powers are teenagers, the very name TEEN hero implies that there are ADULT heros.

 

Thus, you should determine how powerful the average adult hero is, and how powerful you want the PCs to be in relation to that and set the points appropriately.

 

 

Some other interesting spins is to start them off as standard supers, but with thier Base lowered and the Max Disadvantages increased. Encourage the players to take teen-oriented Disadvantages, and as time goes on just phase out the ones that no longer apply and increase thier base accordingly until they have "matured" into a normal base and disadvantaged adult hero. Obviously a character doesnt have to take up to the max Disadvantage total either, prefering to stick to the normal Disadvantage total and thus be less points but less angsty too. Also, you might consider requiring all powers to have at least -1 in limitations in lieu of or in addition to AP limits (depending on how strict you want to be. You might consider encouraging the 'Control' oriented Lims -- Concentration, RSR, Activation, No Conscious Control, Side Effect, Increased END etc.

[Tombstone_Frank]

Teen Heroes

 

In my experiance, and this is my 5th time with the B.R.A.T.S., my best point totals have been 175+75. Limit the Active points to 40. THis has given me the most flexable grouping of heros. You can be almost anyone in any Comic Universe for the 250 pts. That also gives them a 100 pts "growth" timeframe to become full powered super heros.

 

I also give them an estublished Mentor-type, my current team is under the watchful eye of Dr. Silverback, to give them points in the right directions, as well as a "science guy". I have had one where the head-master turned on the team, and that was also a great time.

 

I usually run this at my local con, GrailQuest in Jacksonville, FL, and use the new people to the system to help me with the "kids". To date, The Con games have provided me the best gaming experiance with Teen Super-Heroes.

[Killer Shrike]

Ditto on the CON games/one offs. Because the characters tend to be simpler and "new to thier powers" they are ideally suited to closed environments, one-offs and convention games where players dont have any background with the characters or often the setting, nor time to rectify the lack.

[Elysea]

The teen campaign I'm currently in starts with 150 base points and 100 points in disadvantages, mandatory Normal Characteristic Maxima. This has worked well for us, but I would recommend giving out experience points faster than average until a character reaches about 280 or 300 points -- it makes sense that a character learns the most about super-heroing in his first year, and that advancement slows down from there. This lets the player "patch up the holes" in his character, usually by buying off power limitations or character disadvantages that were necessary at character creation in order to make powers affordable. With active point limits of ~70 points on offensive powers and ~50 points on defensive powers, it sounds like our campaign packs a little more punch than other teen campaigns. This increases the odds of "Oops, I squished the normal," which can bring a bit more gravity to your campaign if that's the way you like it.

[assault]

The definitive comment on roleplaying teens:

 

http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp06212003.html

 

 

Alan

[penemue]

Star Academy

 

I have just rebooted my Champions campaign that has been languishing for the past 7 years. I run a large meta-campaign then divide it into smaller campaigns with a specific focus (like individual comic titles in a larger comic book universe). Last night I ran my first installment of "The Wrong Crowd", a teen hero private school campaign.

I've always been a little different with my players. When I started running the campaign in 1982 I made the character point limit small at 200 points. As the campaign evolved I saw that in my campaign, 250 points was the Justice League level, 200 for the street level and 150 for the teen hero types.

 

The Wrong Crowd characters are built on 150 points.

I try to get them to focus on the character first, then add one or two special abilities that they don't have so much control over.

 

One campaign I have been kicking around for many years, but have never run would be one where teenagers are the only people able to have superpowers in the campaign. Sort of a mutangen strain that ran through the population 13 years ago has now developed into this generation of super powered teenagers. I was going to use Teenagers From Outer Space as the rules engine, but as I said, I never ran it.

[penemue]

oops.. before I forget...

 

Characters are built on 75 points plus 75 points disadvantages.

 

There, just to clear that up.