Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

[Moonblade]

About six months ago, I tried to get a Manhattan game going. (Yes, this is kinda stealth "player finder" thread). I wasn't too concerned about who would GM and who would play but in the interest of generating interest, here's the basics of a campaign I'd be interested in running:

 

Champions Campaign

Alpha Flight: Superhero Socialism

Time Period: Modern

Type: Four Color with some Iron Age elements for flavor.

Premise: The PCs are Canadians who have developed superpowers and are offered an opportunity to join “the Flight”, a government group operating under Department O. They are trained in the use of their superpowers in a group called “Delta Flight.” The lessons are free of charge and resemble high-tech variances of physical therapy. If they are willing and are up to the physical and mental minimum standards, they are offered a place with a national peacekeeping taskforce made up of three levels:

Gamma Flight: This group is similar from Delta training but now team members begin training in group tactics and combat and criminal situations. They also start to draw a salary and get insurance. When the other two groups are occupied, in certain circumstances, this team may be called into a real-world crisis situation and support local or national police. I’m still debating a point system, and if I were, then at this level (using the FRED for basis) characters would be between 100+100 in disads to 150+100 in disads. Characters will begin here.

Characters would have National Police Powers, a Watched by the Government, and the following skills

Teamwork

KS: Canadian Law Enforcement Procedures

5 pts in CSLs

(These are the basics, I’m not great with package deals. So any thoughts in this direction are greatly appreciated)

Beta Flight: At this point, PCs would have some serious real world experience. Beta has a mix of supers, those who are still training but are on their way to being rather powerful and some who have peaked at a lower level of metahuman ability and aren’t ‘high-end’ enough to graduate to Alpha Flight. The intelligence arm of Department O will determine whether to use Beta or Alpha Flight in a conflict. Characters at this level would be Standard Superheroes ranging from 150+150 in disads to 200+150 in disads. You would also get a costume designed to your specs free of charge. Beta Flight members have access to certain government equipment and transport.

Same as Gamma with:

Duty to Department O 11-

10 pts in CSLs

Alpha Flight: The Canadian version of the Champions. Characters in this team are fully trained and are the most powerful in Canada. They receive a bigger stipend and are housed by Department O in a special hidden lair. They have high-speed transport (as needed) that can get to any part of the country in 30 minutes. Like the Mounties, their reputation is such that they are often consulted in situations in other countries and have been involved in some military actions. At that level, involvement is entirely voluntary. Pt range is 250+150 disads to 300+150 disads.

Same as Beta with:

Duty to Department 14-

Hunted by Villain Group 8-

15 pts CSLs

Small pt. contribution to base and transport ala Champions 4 Ed.

Suggestions are more than welcome, especially Canadian flavor and trivia, including quirks of their justic system.

[Lemurion]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

Interesting idea, not sure where there's a "socialist" agenda there. It might make sense to put your "Department O" under CSIS (pronounced Cee-sys) the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I'd also recommend that the "high speed transport" be called the Arrow and be an advanced and enlarged derivative of the CF101 Avro Arrow jet fighter.

[Moonblade]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

The Socialism angle is from my instant impression of reading Alpha Flight #1 and the set-up that stood before Byrne and Shooter took yet another interesting, stable situation and turned it on its ear. Sorry, personal gripe. The idea is kind of a "free clinic" of superhero training. Most American superteams either have private funds or are straight military. My version of the Flight (despite its involvement in some military affairs) is stictly civilian yet also part of the government. I don't mean to make a strong political statement.

 

Thanks for the Canada info. Anybody got thoughts on the package deal?

[Marketeer]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

The thing that leaps out at me is that combat training appears to be a major aspect of their job, since most of the required point expenditures are on CSLs.

 

I think for any government "staff" super, there would be requirements to learn skills such as Oratory, Bureaucratics, Conversation, and so on.

 

I would take some points off of CSLs and do things like "6 points from the following list..." instead, or perhaps add the points in noncombat skills as an additional requirement.

 

I would say that any super stationed in Quebec would have a requirement of 2 pts. in French, for example...

[TrevorG]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

I think I would put the group under the auspices of the RCMP, CSIS is an intelligence agency, while the RCMP serves as the Federal police force (think state troopers and FBI combined) it also satisfies the requirement of a being a non military organization.

 

If you are looking for real-life information, the RCMP maintains a large training base in Regina a city of about 200,000 in the province of Saskatchewan, which could serve as the groups base.

 

Heres the link for the training base website

 

http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/depot/index_e.htm

 

(The city itself will also be hosting not one but two Rolling Stones concerts in October, which of course has absolutely nothing to do with the thread, but we are all very excited about it.)

[David Johnston]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

Interesting idea' date=' not sure where there's a "socialist" agenda there. It might make sense to put your "Department O" under CSIS (pronounced Cee-sys) the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. I'd also recommend that the "high speed transport" be called the Arrow and be an advanced and enlarged derivative of the CF101 Avro Arrow jet fighter.[/quote']

 

Well Department "H" actually predates CSIS in the Marvel Universe. It's the standard sooperseekret government agency so seekret that the Canadian population has no idea they exist. Canada actually had a bizarrely aggressive covert operations division in Marvel's depiction of it. How bizarre? They were using Wolverine and Sabretooth as covert agents. While in the real world Canada has remarkably little use for professional killers with psychopathic tendencies, apparently our foreign policy was a smidgeon more aggressive in their world.

 

Alpha Flight was unusual in that it was initially set up as a government program whereas American superhero teams are generally financed by some rich guy, and the pattern has been for any team in Marvel comics set up by the American government to end up quickly destroying themselves, or turning villainous. While of course the Canadian government in Marvel comics, just like the the American government is substantially more wicked than the real thing, it is just barely benevolent enough that it can field a force of superheroes and only try to betray them or corrupt them a couple of times.

 

And yes, an Alpha Flight package deal should probably include at least minimal instruction in French. The "real" Alpha Flight never concerned itself with law enforcement procedures because they tended to end up fighting giant supernatural monsters that roamed the North West Territories, alien invaders from under the ocean, or Omega Flight but it would make sense to train them in it, just in case I suppose.

 

Oh and incidentally, Alpha Flight in it's heyday weren't the most powerful team in Canada. They were, without question, the most powerful team in the world. They had a brick as strong as the Hulk, a sorcerer second only to Doctor Strange, his daughter who had innate magic that could have fried Doctor Strange, an Iron Man-Level battlesuit character, another battlesuit character who was even tougher, speedsters faster than Quicksilver...oh yeah, and a little person. Who did acrobatics. And said "eh" a lot. And since the Avengers were going through one of their...awkward phases, Alpha Flight spent a while as the largest collection of power in the world. Canada could have taken on the Soviet army. Of course they were kind of crazy.

 

As for bureaucratics and public speaking, those were mostly left to the team leaders and liasons. AF started out as an espionage operation and didn't exactly keep a high profile. They tended to be pretty good at stealth though.

[Moonblade]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

Fantastic suggestions all. In terms of speaking French, as I understand it, most Canandians would have at least 1 pt. in it to begin with. I like the idea of "pick six points from..." I'd forgotten about that element of Package Deals. I'll look into it and repost. I like the training camp angle, especially for Gamma and Beta. You'd never know where Alpha is based. I'm thinking something along the lines of the Lair from "Who wants to be a superhero?"

 

I agree that being under the auspices of the RCMP or at least working with them is better than intelligence services. However, my concept is that the Flight is its own group. They aren't a part of any other law enforcement section and their authority in the field, epecially Alpha Flight will usually supersede any other officials in the field.

 

And I wasn't looking to undermine Canada's heroes, Mr. Johnston. In fact that whole point of the last paragraph of my original post is that Alpha is world-class. BUt note; the characters who may be in Alpha, Beta and Gamma flight in this campaign will have little resemblance to the characters in John Byrne's stories. Part of the reason I wanted to do this is I felt the original direction the stories could have gone may have been better than what were ultimately told.

 

That's why I called it Department O, just to separate it from the comic. Unlike the later stories, I see the Department as being fairly benevolent. The Flight members may deal with government corruption (I may have a rosier view of Canada's government than our own but noone's perfect.)

 

I think an important question is; would this be a campaign y'all would want to be involved in. Soon I'll post a sample Gamma Flight character.

[Terry Wilcox]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

In terms of speaking French, as I understand it, most Canandians would have at least 1 pt. in it to begin with.

 

French and English language skills will vary greatly by region, age, and education. My parents, retired in Alberta, have 0 points in French. I have about 1 point although I had a decade of French courses a very long time ago, I know a few people who are fluently bilingual, and I have a friend with Quebecois relatives who have 0 points in English.

 

Public employees are expected to be able to get by in both official languages.

 

You'd never know where Alpha is based.

 

Keep in mind that Canada is really really big and pretty much empty. As the crow flies it's 5046 km from Vancouver to Saint John's. In comparison New York to L.A. is only 3961 km. And IIRC Canada is larger North to South than it is East to West.

 

Most of the population of Canada is within a few hundred miles of the American border, so anything North of that is pretty deserted.

 

I think an important question is; would this be a campaign y'all would want to be involved in.

 

I don't really see why your campaign needs to occur in Canada. There's already precedent for groups funded by or operating under the auspices of the American government. All-Star Squadron during WWII, the Avengers, SHIELD.

 

Not every super group has a genius that makes billions of dollars off of patents that never ever show up in technology outside of other super groups. And how do solo superheroes get by working part-time and needing so much health insurance?

 

As a Canadian I'd rather play in Avengers or Superhero Litigation.

 

In today's episode we learn that nobody on the planet will insure the Avengers and the world doesn't have enough lawyers to cover all the property damage and personal injury lawsuits filed against them.

 

Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four are in a quandary when the Human Torch can't use his powers due to a restraining order. Little Bobby Smith lit himself on fire because of the Human Torch...

[David Johnston]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

Keep in mind that Canada is really really big and pretty much empty.

 

Er...don't get the wrong idea. Canada is large and population density is low in the north. But there are small towns and villages all over the place.

[MilkmanDan]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

I wouldn't actually call this "socialism" as much as "a really good financial decision". If supers are better able to control their powers and act in a more responsible manner, there's going to be less clean-up and less collateral damage. Having a government-sponsored superhero training program can be seen as just a way to wind up spending less on repairs and insurance costs. It's a good idea just economically.

[Terry Wilcox]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

Er...don't get the wrong idea. Canada is large and population density is low in the north. But there are small towns and villages all over the place.

 

I know. I grew up in a small town in northern Alberta. By "empty" I meant low population density, not devoid of all things, including life.

 

You know, figuratively, not literally...

[David Johnston]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

Yes but you were talking to an American who is thinking of running a foreign game. Sometimes confusion happens. And I swear sometimes in Alpha Flight they did treat the entire country as if it was uninhabited outside of Toronto.

 

Incidentally, I wasn't accusing anyone of denigrating Alpha Flight. I just thought it was really funny that back in the day, Canada had the most powerful superhero team in Marvel's world. Plus Puck. And he wasn't even there to kick the kryptonite away.

[Speedball]

Re: Potential Campaign: Alpha Flight or Superhero Socialism

 

This sounds like a fun campaign. Sign me up. Would players need to pay for these package deal skills out of their points, or are they considered 'gimmes'? Ditto for the disads--are they part of the 150, or over and above it?