Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

[OddHat]

Reading through Albion, Alan Moore's book on what, in the context of their world, really happened to all the 50s era UK comic characters, I got to thinking about how we as GMs handle the question of "whatever happened to" previous generations of Superheroes and adventurers.

 

The Algernon Files and Fires of War books take an interesting approach to the issue, killing off and retiring some, having others leave Earth and a few still knocking around as potential NPCs, or leaving children behind them to play a part in a campaign. As a Four Color Comic Book Setting, the Algernon world is designed to handle large numbers of public Super Heroes and Villains.

 

Moore's Miracleman, Watchmen, and Albion (and from a completely different direction Top Ten, as a plot point relating to one alternate Earth) present a modern world featuring, on the surface, no supers and little evidence of the fantastic. The wild, over the top Pulp, Golden and Silver Age Heroes either never existed, or were driven away or underground by a society that could not tolerate the extraordinary.

 

My own campaign history clears away the public iconic heroes and villains by the 1990s, in time for the player characters to step forward into the spotlight as this generation's major characters. A few of the minor league old schoolers are still knocking around, mostly for color or as comic relief, but the big names are off the table save as potential sources of origins or plot hooks. I also use the conceit that almost all of the Victorian Sci-Fi books, Pulps, and Golden and Silver Age comic books were fictionalized accounts of real events, but that the reality was often completely different from the story as presented in the media. Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton approach played a big part in my campaign design.

 

So, in you're campaign:

 

Were there analogs of Sherlock Holmes, Captain Nemo, Edward Hyde and Hawley Griffen?

 

Were there analogs of Tarzan, Doc Savage, and the Shadow?

 

Were Supers active in WWI or WWII, Korea or Viet Nam?

 

If you did have Great Heroes and Great Villains, are they still active? If not, where did they go? Is there a secret government lab somewhere holding Green Lantern's Ring, Wonder Woman's Lasso, and the severed head of Brainiac?

 

Where did all the great ones go?

[assault]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

I've designed, and occasionally used, a bunch of different settings over the years.

 

One of them had a Superboy equivalent in the 30s. This was a Legion of Superheroes homage setting.

 

In another setting I had homages of the Phantom and Mandrake active in the 30s. The Phantom homage's ancestors had been active for centuries, of course, and he has a current successor. I also had some other supers active a little later. Most had retired, although one had "disappeared" in a way that meant I could bring him back when the time was right. I didn't actually get around do it, but the plan was there.

 

EDIT: The Mandrake homage eventually retired, and wrote what became the standard textbooks about mental powers.

[Corven_Ren]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

My world is a little mix of Marvel/DC/Champions/ and a lot of my own creations. Many iconic heroes have or do currently exist in my campaign.

 

There are certain iconic heroes I have running around having either gotten there powers just recently, ie within the past 10 years or passed the legacy on to others.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

In my campaign there are versions of the steamteck characters. In fact we run another campaign in that era thats history in the more current one.

 

My shadow, Shade vanished or retired. My Doc Savage managed to physically transform himself to Golden age Superman and is still active. He started the costumed hero thing I use him for plot hooks spanning back generations. My Tarzanette.Isissa, a PC is still active in the Steamteck game so I don't know her fate. At least two masterminds have been seen in both games and I have a number of immortals who should still be around in both campaigns but lay low in the more modern one Another PC was a Captain Nemo he eventually retired but was one of the big starters of the scientific revolution. It creates a dynamic fun world.

[Guest steamteck]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

BTW My Doc savage/ Golden age Supes homage is my Avatar.

[Werehawk]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

My campaign has several Timely Comics characters that operated before and during WWII as a loose confederation of "Mystery Men" called the American League. They included the Blazing Skull,The Challenger,The Fin,Miss America,Red Raven,The Silver Scorpion,The Thunderer,and Aarkus,aka the Vision. My current scenario will re-introduce the Vision to my players as they try to prevent a powerful sorceror the League once defeated from returning.

[McCoy]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

Were there analogs of Sherlock Holmes, Captain Nemo, Edward Hyde and Hawley Griffen?

 

Were there analogs of Tarzan, Doc Savage, and the Shadow?

 

Were Supers active in WWI or WWII, Korea or Viet Nam?

Nemo is known to have survived the Great war, but has not been heard from since 1919. Hyde and Griffen both died, presumably from side effects of their experiments. Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty killed each other in 1893, many people claiming to be one or the other, or in one case both, have surfaced, all have been imposters.

 

I haven't decided about Clark Savage, Jr. It is very tempting to have had him not come back from an expedition in 1949, and officially declaired dead 1n 1958 or 59. On the other hand, it is also tempting to have a plot line where what he has been doing with his prisoners comes to light, and he is accused of crimes against humanity. Either way, Patricia currently lives in the penthouse and administers her cousin's estate as a philanthropic trust. She no longer adventures. Don't know about Tarzan yet. Lamont Cranston passed away of natural causes in his civilian ID.

 

Supers were active in the Great War and WWII, sponsored ones mostly in espionage, unsponsored on the Home Front. Cap was the exception, he was on the front lines. Tony Stark was wounded in Viet-Nam, and Iron Man went back a few times. Other supers may have Viet-Nam or Korea as part of their back story.

[death tribble]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

Everything is normal until just before WW2 when superpowers occurred in Germany. I've used the system (I forget the name) that the Germans developed superpowers and then the allies have to fight them with normals.

After the war the surviving ones are incarcerated or killed. The head, Uberman, is sentenced to death but no method is found to kill him. So he is put on the Prinz Eugen and 'killed' in the Bikini Atoll atom bomb test. Except he survives and is returned to Spandau prison. There he remains, apart from 2 weeks in 1961 when he is broken out but returns, until 1997 when he is let out and joins the UN.

He is the last survivor of the German paranomals from the war and due to the A-bomb is the world's equivalent to Superman.

 

Heroes and agents come up in the 60s with the creation of the UN team the 17 over half whose members die in their first real fight. Of those one remains active to this day and two others are still thought to be alive.

 

Invictus was Reagan's bodyguard but is brought down in 1991 and sent to prison. He has tried to escape but failed so far.

Liberty, the Wonder Woman analog, is now active in only one city Century City from the Heroes Unlimited sourcebook.

Other heroes died in a 5 year war against a bunch of supervillains (50+) that ran from 1992-97.

Quite a few of the Masterminds and evil villains warred between each other from 1997 to 1999. And after recovering began their work over again in the 2000's.

 

The UN expressly prohibits Supers from taking part in wars as the destruction they could cause could lead to an arms race. But it also shows why Rwanda and the genocide in Yugoslavia happened. It is thought (but yet to be proven) that the UN takes action against those countries that have tried to breach this.

There was paranormal involvement in Vietname with the confirmed appearance of the United States Marine Corpse. As his appearance was spontaneous and he acted to help US soldiers rather than advance the war effort no action was taken against the US. Besides he is a member of the Undead. And the law there is a very grey area.

 

The UN's team operates around the world usually with just one member being in one place whereas the players can be in one place and be the main focus of the story.

[Savinien]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

Instead of arbitrarily deciding this stuff, I decided to 'play-out' the early years of my setting. I've started the campaign in 1925 with a few 'paranormal' members of society. The majority of these beling to a shadowy, conspiratol group known as the Veiled Society.

 

I did create an anagolous 'supers' setting in a possible future of the same setting and simply decided some of the things that occured as the setting moved forward in time. I haven't actually ran a game yet in this supers setting, though.

 

To be a bit more on topic, I decided many of the supers died in a couple of Events. One was an Invasion by the Slaad, and the other a horrific event taking place in Brentwood that destroyed the surrounding area in a 100 mile radius. Unable to fully contain the subsequent 'rip' in the Phologistan, US government walled up the area and try and keep anything that makes its way out is eliminated before wreaking any havoc.

[Grimble]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

In my Game World there is a mish-mash of old and new. I have a version of Doc Savage called Doctor Bronze. He is actually made of Bronze in the current era and still travels with a group of Very useful and clorful followers (They are not his original friends, they have died or retired over the years. One of them is the gradson of a previous follower). He's been active in the world since the 20s and got his Bronze body in the 60s.

 

Mighty Man is my Superman rip-off character. He has been an active superhero since he first donned his cape in 1939. He's currently the leader of the World Watchers (JLA of my campaign).

 

One of my PCs is playing James Bond. He drove his DB-5 into a warehouse during a High-energy physics experiment. Everything blew up. Thanks to the protection of the vehicle he survived, but was transported to Phoenix,AZ and to the year 2005. He is now in the PC Supergroup and using the Codename Duece. Highly skilled, Nano-weave armor given to him by Brittish Intelligence and several cool guns. The car has been fixed and suped-up, as well.

 

I have a Tarzan-like character. He is active in the jungles of Africa and in England. He is a VERY skilled normal. He is, however, still in his physical prime thanks to a secret concoction of herbs and vines that a medicine man taught him how to brew (Longevity, but needs to drink secret brew once a week). He spends as much time as he can in England, but is ever drawn back to the jungles of his youth.

 

King Arthur has just returned to England from the Land of the Fey to help stop an alien invasion! No sign of Merlin, yet, but I do have plans for him to show up in the near future of the game.

 

There are also Champions Universe NPCs such as Black Mask and all of his, and his predecessors exploits. Several Immortals,undead and timetravellers that broaden the backstory. I love running a full and complicated world.

 

Throw in Alternate Timelines and it gets even worse (or better)!

 

 

Grimble

[pharmakos]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

In the history (http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/History'>http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/History) of my current campaign, heroes began emerging after a Celestial event near Jupiter in 1905. By the outbreak of WWII in 1939, the majority of the most visible surviving supers had retired. Some of their descendents, however, displayed superhuman abilities and became involved in the conflict.

 

I've detailed the two main teams of the WWII era, the domestic Defenders of Justice (http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/Defenders%20of%20Justice'>http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/Defenders%20of%20Justice) and their battlefied complement, the Freedom Battallion (http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/Freedom%20Battallion'>http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/Freedom%20Battallion).

 

Some of these characters retired or passed away, but my PCs have had significant contact with two major Golden Age Heroes, both retired--Nightraven (a batman-like character) and Captain Freedom (a Captain America-like character and now U.S. Senator). As a subplot, the PC team is presently wrapped up in a kind of feud between the two men in the style of Frank Miller's Dark Night v. Superman.

 

The PCs also fought a villain, Grey Gremlin II (http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/Grey%20Gremlin%20II'>http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/Grey%20Gremlin%20II) who took on the identity of a Golden Age villain.

 

I'm working on the Silver Age heroes now and hope to be adding more soon. If you're interested in the campaign setting or more about how older heroes figure in to the present setting, I put everything pretty much on our wiki, City of Secrets (http://cityofsecrets.pbwiki.com/).

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

In previous campaigns I've often removed the Great Ones by killing them off. There are a few reasons why one might not want to though:

 

1) PCs are second stringers or occupy a niche the big players don't.

2) PCs are supervillains.

3) Game is set in the Iron Age and focuses on superhero vs superhero conflict. This conflict could be over a variety of issues - mutants vs non-mutants, young vs old, killers vs non-killers, pro vs anti-registration or heroes meddling in politics as in Squadron Supreme or Watchmen.

[Metaphysician]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

Well, in the campaign I'm currently in, our native time period is pre-classical. The prior "generation" of heroes before this was about a thousand years back, and it was ended by an apocalyptic war to save the world.

 

Fast forward to the modern era, and there used to be pulp, golden, and silver age heroic type stuff. We know that the heroes in question were removed via forced exile by the conspiratorial group that mostly controls the present. We also know they did something to wipe most traces of them from historical and personal memory, though we don't know what.

[Zed-F]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

When doing world-building as opposed to using a generic CU-like setting, my approaches to this sort of thing have in the past been one of two options:

 

1) There have always been heroes, but they used to be weaker. Power levels of heroes in the classical age would be 'strength of 10 men' level, graduating up over time, slowly at first but with increasing speed as the modern era approached. (Superhero power levels increase over time in a similar fashion to the accelerating pace of technological / weapons advancement, though the two are not necessarily related.) PCs could still meet the heroes of yesteryear without feeling overshadowed by them. Optionally, a PC could be a hero of yesteryear, if he wanted to opt more for a skills-based character with relatively weaker powers rather than have a heavy investment into powers out of the block.

 

2) Superheroes did not exist before; some event (calamitous or otherwise) causes them to spring into existence at the start of the campaign or shortly prior to it, and the PCs are among the first such. My current campaign takes this approach.

[David Johnston]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

One of my PCs is playing James Bond. He drove his DB-5 into a warehouse during a High-energy physics experiment. Everything blew up. Thanks to the protection of the vehicle he survived, but was transported to Phoenix,AZ and to the year 2005.

 

 

Yeah, baby!

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Where did all the Great Ones go? World building.

 

Now I was doing a game that got reconned into an older one that I play in. It was to have had all the 'heroes' of the past have analogs that did exist, and the stories where fictionalized version of what did happen.

 

Now I can't use that in the current game, but eventually I will use this idea as a game setting some time.