SG-1 style campaign

[jefffitz77]

Hi

I'm starting my first Champions campaign this week. My players didn't want to do a comic book style setting, so I've had to modify the Champions Universe quite a bit. My idea is an X-Files/SG-1 style campaign, where the players work for a secret gov't agency,whose job is to deal with superhuman threats. Since no "Capes" can be public knowledge, the history has to be totally rewritten, and all the NPC's and organizations need to be changed.

I could use some advise in a couple of areas:

1) The Players will be working for the DOD- so whats the best way of dealing with the Chain of Command? I don't want them to feel that they have no choice in adventures, but they are effectively part of the military and will have to follow orders.

 

2) How do I keep criminal organizations like VIPER secret? This is the same as keeping the Mafia secret, I just can't see how it could be done and have it still be VIPER.

 

Any feedback is appreciated,

 

Thanks-

jeff

[transmetahuman]

Re: SG-1 style campaign

 

My first thought was why use the CU at all? It'll take so much work to change that you might as well just loot the CU for a few ideas and make the rest up yourself. But, assuming you want to use as many CU elements as you can, your title suggests an idea: have most of the CU elements bleed over from an alternate universe. Maybe a permanent gate was opened by a villain over there, or the dimensional membranes between the two worlds just got weak for some random reason.

[jefffitz77]

Re: SG-1 style campaign

 

There are a couple reasons I want to use a pre-existing setting: NPC's, villains, and environments. If this was Forgotten Realms I could just come up with adventures and be done with it, but I have to think out the whole world. I have to take into account the Secretary of the Dept. of Defense and his Deputy, as well as, the Dept. of Homeland Security. The Champions Universe book doesn't exactly have chapters for these things.

[Kevin Schultz]

Re: SG-1 style campaign

 

There are a couple reasons I want to use a pre-existing setting: NPC's' date=' villains, and environments. If this was Forgotten Realms I could just come up with adventures and be done with it, but I have to think out the whole world. I have to take into account the Secretary of the Dept. of Defense and his Deputy, as well as, the Dept. of Homeland Security. The Champions Universe book doesn't exactly have chapters for these things.[/quote']

 

I think transmetahuman hit the point I was about to. If superheroes aren't public, then by definition it isn't the Champions world any more. It sounds more like you're trying to put together a "through a mirror, darkly" kind of world, where everyone has goatees and are vampires. (to pull from Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, respectively.) I'd recommend simply saying to your players "ok, modern world as we understand it", and pull a Buffy - either governments are simply not aware (due to willful ignorance or powerful telepaths), or they are aware, but keep a hands-off approach to the paranatural for one reason or another (bad experiences in the past in attempting to controll paranormal events.)

 

If you want a pregen world, I would actually recommend Stargate SG1: the RPG - it's out of print currently, as it got pulled when they decided to do an MMORPG version of it. However, in one of the chapters, they discuss doing exactally what transmetahuman suggested. It's an optional campaign style that uses the Quantum Mirror (which showed up in 2 episodes) to step into alternate realities instead of planets. In the show, General Hammond ordered it destroyed after the second mixup, but the authors suggest that instead, he orders having a separate SG team set up to explore alterante realities.

 

So, they end up dialing into the Champions world. Drama ensues!

[ShadowWraithe]

Re: SG-1 style campaign

 

There are many ways you can work existing elements into the game without the general public being aware of them. Many of the supers can do their thing without wearing flashy outfits.

 

Street clothing and trench coats for some of the ones who have equipment or features harder to hide. Most paranormals should be given enough common sense to be sublte with their powers, use them mostly at night or when no one else is around, unless absolutely necessary. The ones too crazy to hide get captured quickly.

 

Viper's uniforms don't have to be flashy either. They could be designed to resemble military or swat police uniforms with modest snake emblems or patches where normal insignia would be found. They would limit the occasions they bring out their robots, cyborgs and paranormals and they would plan them out well enough to minimize public witnesses. Or they may leave no witnesses.

 

The government's PR will also have a huge roll to play in this as well. Their clean-up crews roll in asap to give statements to the press, discourage witnesses from saying what they think they saw, drop off weather balloon wreckage where hovercrafts fell. They should hire scores of experts to debunk stories of flying men and show how stage magicians shoot fire from their fingertips all the time.

 

Perhaps a few times a year the government puts out a few movies or TV shows with absurdly ludicrous, impossible and tongue-in-cheek plots to lower public belief in paranormals. They could put in a few real-life events that they had trouble keeping quiet into a movie and claim the witnesses actually saw the filming of the incident or that it was a publicity stunt. Possibly a few movies would come out where the theme is paranormls (ie. mutants, aliens, monsters, androids, etc) are antisocial deviants who always end up getting caught, disected, imprisoned or killed. Witnesses who don't remain silent could be ridiculed as quacks. At the extreme end of the spectrum, the noisy ones could even get reprogramed by the government.

 

As for interacting with the DoD, you can try the Mission Impossible approach, "If you choose to accept this mission, ...... , This computer terminal will self-destruct in 10 seconds" The missions may be optional, but the importance and possible consequences of not taking could be emphasized.

- The less qualified 'B Team' will need to be sent in. On one of the declined missions, you could have the DoD come back in a couple of days with surveillance video of the tragic defeat of the totally outclassed 'B Team'

- Innocents will be injured if the threat is left unchecked

- The last two pieces needed to create the death ray satellie will fall into the wrong hands

- The government will have to send a unit of assassins to resolve the problem if the group won't go to capture and subdue the threat.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: SG-1 style campaign

 

You might consider Googling Fringeworthy, which is supposed to be rereleased in a new edition soon, IIRC.

 

It's close enough to SG-1 that there have been consistant allegations of plagarisim (Fringeworth came first), except the "Gate Network" left behind by the ancients lead to alternate dimensions and paralel timelines as well as points in space.

 

I used to love GMing Fringeworthy, and have often thought of doing a HERO version. You can literally introduce ANY setting you want, Sliders style. Use ANY setting, ALL premade materials (or none )

[The Monster]

Re: SG-1 style campaign

 

Heroes. The TV series.

 

The existence of supers is known by certain individuals and government agencies, as well as certain non-governmental groups (VIPER, etc.), any and all of which may or may not have the wellbeing of the supers as a high priority. The supers themselves may be uncertain about their abilties and the existence of others; some will have banded together for do-gooding or for personal protection or even for exploitative action (or all of the above).

[The Monster]

Re: SG-1 style campaign

 

Heroes. The TV series.

 

The existence of supers is known by certain individuals and government agencies, as well as certain non-governmental groups (VIPER, etc.), any and all of which may or may not have the wellbeing of the supers as a high priority. The supers themselves may be uncertain about their abilties and the existence of others; some will have banded together for do-gooding or for personal protection or even for exploitative action (or all of the above).

Meh - I hit "Post Quick Reply" instead of "Go Advanced"

 

From this basic framework you can do just about anything, and the world remains largely undisturbed from its real-world roots.

 

The idea of a military SG type team is quite attractive: you can lift it direct from SG1, where the team is only one or two links away from the Oval Office itself, and operates as a totally black-budget operation.

 

Given the proclivities of comic books, you can even include an overarcing alien threat - imagine a galactic empire led by evil supers (not Sith, of course... ). The Terran Empire book has as much stuff about alien races and tech as you could ask, if you go this route (there're analogies for everything from Klingons to Goa'uld).

 

Another possibility on the Stargate/Fringeworthy conept is to have the team cut off completely from Earth, either by accident or design - their starship crashes, their orders are to never reveal Earth's location, something like that. Could be amusing. Actually, that brings to mind a possible published background to check out - Uplift, novel by Brin. There's a fine GURPS sourcebook on it, and an Earth team in the early phases of contact might fit pretty well in that universe (no superpowers, though).

[jefffitz77]

Re: SG-1 style campaign

 

The government's PR will also have a huge roll to play in this as well. Their clean-up crews roll in asap to give statements to the press, discourage witnesses from saying what they think they saw, drop off weather balloon wreckage where hovercrafts fell. They should hire scores of experts to debunk stories of flying men and show how stage magicians shoot fire from their fingertips all the time.

 

Thanks to everyone, you've given me a lot of good ideas. I particularly like the Gov't PR team that has to explain things to the public.

The group meets tomorrow for preliminary character creation, so wish me luck.