Campaign backstories

[Doug McCrae]

Following on from Shaft's interesting thread on his campaign timeline I'd like to have a general thread about campaign backstories.

 

Are superheroes a new phenomenon? Have there been ‘ages of comics’ such as the Golden and Silver Age? Do the types of heroes and villains from those ages correspond to the changing styles in comic books? Do you directly use DC or Marvel characters such as Superman and the Fantastic Four or analogues thereof?

 

Did the first superhero appear in 1938 or have you done something a bit different? Perhaps taking inspiration from Neil Gaiman’s 1602 and having costumed do-gooders appear in that year. Or Ken Hite’s heroes from many historical eras in Suppressed Transmission 2.

 

Are the great heroes of the past gone or are they still around to interact with the PCs? For example in Golden Heroes most of the members of the EAGLES, a Silver Age team, were killed by a space horror. Does the public regard the heroes of earlier eras as being more noble or heroic than those of the present day?

[Chimpira]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

I currently use the Champions world but I have created a campaign world that I revisit every so often. All truth be told I have been itching to get back to it.

 

The thread for that world is here http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48932

 

I tend to think that superheroes in my universe appeared before World War II but became popular during that period. As historic trends I do establish golden age, silver age, etc.. but that is how some choose to remember the times and not necessarily how the times were, if you get my meaning.

 

I do not blatantly rip MArvel or DC but I have created characters that are derived from them. You just have to accept that the similiarities are there and just move on.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

Well, lets see, the supers games backstories I've had. . .

 

-New Sentinels: Mostly standard CU. The main change was that *all* the Sentinels died at Detroit, save for Horus-Re, our campaign Superman analogue.

 

-Aegis: city defender game set shortly after the afforementioned' games Battle of Detroit. Chicago is mostly lacking in superheroes, so when a few join in an impromtu gathering, the mayor gives them official support and sanction.

 

-Ancient Aberrant: See here for details.

[Houston GM]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

Recent Origins

 

My Champions campaigns have been a series based shortly after the "origin" of superpowers. The first one began 6 months after superpowers appeared. The following one began about 2 1/2 years after superpowers appeared. The last one jumped a decade or so into the future.

 

This has the following benefits:

 

#1 Nobody is certain what caused the origin of superpowers. In the first campaign, nobody had a clue. In the second campaign, a couple PCs became convinced that the origin was connected to the appearance of alien artifacts. In the third campaign ... well, the truth might finally come out.

 

#2 I don't need to explain why technology hasn't kept up with supertech. For the first two campaigns, there just wasn't time for the tech to keep up. For the third, there have been noticeable advances over the previous two campaigns.

 

#3 In campaigns with earlier origins, you either need to completely re-write the timeline, or you need to come up with a plausible explanation why the timeline so closely parallels our own, despite the presence of superpowers. In an "Origin" or "Recent Origin" campaign, you can start diverging at the present time, without having to alter the past.

 

#4 You can demonstrate some organic growth to crucial elements of the campaign world. My version of Genocide/IHA started out as a grassroot organization of rednecks with assault rifles. Over the course of the campaign, they started fielding assault robots and powered armor. This put forth the very obvious question: "Who is providing the money and know-how for all this technology?"

[assault]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

I write campaign backstories just for fun, so the answer will always be "it varies".

 

Are superheroes a new phenomenon?

Sometimes. See below.

 

Have there been ‘ages of comics’ such as the Golden and Silver Age?

I often have a Golden Age. I seldom bother much with subsequent "Ages". My PCs are often more or less the Silver Age. I also have been known to have a "future" setting like the LSH. Their feel is distincly Silver Age too.

 

Do the types of heroes and villains from those ages correspond to the changing styles in comic books?

Roughly.

 

Do you directly use DC or Marvel characters such as Superman and the Fantastic Four or analogues thereof?

I use analogues.

 

Did the first superhero appear in 1938 or have you done something a bit different?

I've had cases where my Superman equivalent had a "Superboy" career prior to 1938. In other instances, superheroes first appeared in the 70s, or even in the 21st century.

 

Are the great heroes of the past gone or are they still around to interact with the PCs?

In some cases the PCs are "the great heroes of the past"! In other cases the old timers are missing, but will eventually show up.

 

Does the public regard the heroes of earlier eras as being more noble or heroic than those of the present day?

I haven't ever made a big deal of this. Possibly, at least for some of the more iconic characters.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

In our campaign, supers first appeared publicly in 2000, although a few had been operating "below the radar" for several years prior (and Atlanteans with superhuman abilities had been secretly around for millenia). The source of the majority of metahuman abilities has been determined to be from two factors: 1) Atlantean genes (for any character with magic or mystic powers and many mentalists), or 2) A pea-sized artificial "organ" located deep within the brain which rewrites the meta's body structure down to the DNA/molecular level. While the source and ultimate purpose of these devices (which some scientists suspect are quantum computers) is still a mystery, the recent discovery of aliens with similar implanted devices suggests the origin is extraterrestrial. (Those particular aliens were clearly not the source; they'd discovered the devices on the bodies of some long-dead - at least 50,000 years - other aliens and implanted them in their own bodies. What was really confusing is that the source aliens looked just like humans; although their technology was both almost incomprehensible and totally alien-looking.)

 

Yep, it's a mystery...

[Metaphysician]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

In our campaign, supers first appeared publicly in 2000, although a few had been operating "below the radar" for several years prior (and Atlanteans with superhuman abilities had been secretly around for millenia). The source of the majority of metahuman abilities has been determined to be from two factors: 1) Atlantean genes (for any character with magic or mystic powers and many mentalists), or 2) A pea-sized artificial "organ" located deep within the brain which rewrites the meta's body structure down to the DNA/molecular level. While the source and ultimate purpose of these devices (which some scientists suspect are quantum computers) is still a mystery, the recent discovery of aliens with similar implanted devices suggests the origin is extraterrestrial. (Those particular aliens were clearly not the source; they'd discovered the devices on the bodies of some long-dead - at least 50,000 years - other aliens and implanted them in their own bodies. What was really confusing is that the source aliens looked just like humans; although their technology was both almost incomprehensible and totally alien-looking.)

 

Yep, it's a mystery...

 

Sounds like a variant of "Earth as lost colony of precursor species", to me.

[OddHat]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

Are superheroes a new phenomenon?

 

In my default campaign, not exactly. People with superpowers have been around for at least 50,000 years. However, the number of active metahumans has generally been very low, with brief population spikes here and there over the centuries. The period from the 1880s to the present is the longest sustained period of metahuman population growth since the fall of Atlantis.

 

Have there been ‘ages of comics’ such as the Golden and Silver Age?

 

Not exactly. There was however a Fantastic Victoriana period that transitioned into the Pulp period and the still ongoing Rocket Age.

Do the types of heroes and villains from those ages correspond to the changing styles in comic books?

 

Not exactly, though the number of powerful active metahumans has increased along with the general Metahuman population, especially post WW1.

 

Do you directly use DC or Marvel characters such as Superman and the Fantastic Four or analogues thereof?

 

Close analogs. The campaign conceit is that popular culture offers a sensationalized, oversimplified and intentionally distorted record of the genuine struggles between metahuman factions over the centuries. The approach is taken largely from Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe, tweaked and adjusted for the elements that I want in my campaigns. So, there was a Superman who publicly adventured from 1938 until 1966, but the books and comics have created an image of his life and adventures that bears very little relation to the reality.

 

Did the first superhero appear in 1938 or have you done something a bit different?

Again, it's more Wold Newton inspired. The man who would eventually be known as Superman first started adventuring in 1916, but didn't put on the costume until 1938. The timeline is here.

 

Are the great heroes of the past gone or are they still around to interact with the PCs?

 

Most of them are gone, either dead, retired, in hiding, or working behind the scenes. This was mainly done to give the player characters center stage. The icons are there to give the characters a sense of the scope and structure of the campaign world and to provide occasional plot hooks.

 

 

Does the public regard the heroes of earlier eras as being more noble or heroic than those of the present day?

 

No, but then I don't follow Comic Book Ages.

[Zed-F]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

In my current campaign, the PCs are some of the first supers the world has seen. Simultaneous with the appearance of the first supers comes an extradimensional invasion (the superpowers having been granted to humans by another extradimensional faction opposed to the invaders.)

 

So the governments of my campaign world have to deal not only with the global disasters precipitated by the way in which the superpowers were granted (everyone on the planet fell suddenly asleep simultaneously for a period of several hours, regardless of what they were doing at the time,) and with the fact that a random selection of the populace now have a broad variety of abilities nobody has any experience dealing with, but also with an alien armada they have no way to directly counter, which is preparing to unleash hell on earth. It seems like the only way humanity will survive is for the superhuman element to band together and wage war against the invaders. But the interdimensional threat is not yet common knowledge, and naturally, some of the new metahumans have other, supervillainous, ideas.

[Trebuchet]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

Sounds like a variant of "Earth as lost colony of precursor species"' date=' to me.[/quote']Yes, it does. But that would be wrong.

[Radar]

Re: Campaign backstories

 

I'm setting up a world right now that has superhuman activity just becoming prevalent in the present day. A galactic federation has been in alliance with Earth governments since just prior to WW2 to contain the superhuman poulation. The federation has convinced them that Earth's admission into said federation will be hindered by the imbalance of power all these random uncontrolled powerhouses would cause, so they've been slowly capturing and 'storing' them, with plans to awaken and indoctrinate them into the culture later. Unfortunately, the rate at which superhumans are appearing lately is getting to be too much to handle, even with alien tech and manpower. This is where our heroes come in...

 

So this thread came along at a pretty handy time