10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

[Bluefire]

I would love to know what other people would list as their top 10 disasters that might take place in game. Something that the PCs could resolve or prevent preferably. Below are the 10 I thought up real quick.

 

1) Designer Drug (Superium) outbreak. Makes person superhuman for a few hours, then they will die.

2) Asteroid larger then the moon about to crash into Earth.

3) Scientist open a rift in time, but who is really controlling the rift?

4) Crashed radioactive UFO found to be cause of polar caps melting, but its protected by a inpenetrable field.

5) Electricity stops working around the world. Nothing powered, works. Why?

6) Engineered Virus is released that could kill supers and normals alike.

7) Viper creates an MMORPG that brain-washes those that play.

8) World leaders found to be robots controlled by Mechanon.

9) Dr. Destroyer surrenders "his planet" to off-world invaders.

10) Super Sinister Device is turned on that prevents people from sleeping.

 

-Bluefire

[Houston GM]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

Here are five global disasters that the teams in the game have encountered:

 

1) Mechanon took over the International Space Station and began converting it into a platform for an orbital massdriver.

 

2) The Idiot King released his "millenium virus" which recreated the "Y2K bug". When the clocks ticked from 11:59:59pm on 12/31/2000 to 12:00:00am on 01/01/2001, all the computer calendars would reset from 2001 to 1901.

 

3) Humanity First (my campaign's version of Genocide) developed a nanoplague to wipe out all metahumans. The nanoplague got re-engineered to affect all life, not just metahumans.

 

4) Mechanon unleashed his version of the biblical apocolypse. Notable features included the Four Horsemen (i.e. Pestilence unleashed a genetically-engineered plague) and "oceans turning to blood" (the red tide unleashed on a global scale).

 

5) The heroes were sent back in time (to a far off world) to delay an alien invasion so it would occur after metahumans had developed on Earth.

 

 

The current campaign occurs after the alien invasion, during the alien occupation.

Here are five more global disasters that the current campaign might encounter:

 

6) Dr. Destroyer triggers several massive volcanic eruptions simultaneously, triggering a mini ice age.

 

7) The alien invaders begin harvesting the ozone layer.

 

8) The alien invaders decide to "terraform" the earth into a more hospitable environment for them.

 

9) Mechanon releases a genetically-engineered, rapidly spreading form of algae that begins converting carbon dioxide to oxygen on a massive scale. When the oxygen levels reach sufficiently high levels, Mechanon ignites the atmosphere.

 

10) When the alien occupation is finally driven off the planet, they decide to employ a "scorched earth" policy by unleashing a nuclear holocaust.

 

 

And if any of my players are reading this, you can be certain they're sweating right now.

[Gummibear]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOUR team might encounter...

 

7) Viper creates an MMORPG that brain-washes those that play.

 

-Bluefire

 

Its so crazy it just might work...

 

Or is that what really happened...hrrm

[Psybolt]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

I've had a lot of major disasters that the PCs had to deal with or handle. Some include:

 

1. A killer fog that would surround a city killing everyone in the city.

 

2. A massive volcano raises frm the middle of the Pacific causing global problems.

 

3. An artifact lands on the planet, followed closely by a massive alien creature chasing it. (One of the PCs immediately after finding the artifact, prior to knowing what it was, said to throw it into the sun)

 

4. A super villain appears in the Middle East in the guise of Jesus Christ, causing remarkable religious uprising across the world.

 

5. Keeping on the religious theme, the Pope was assassinated and the pCs needed to chase down the killer, who turned out to be innocent.

 

6. We had a World War III.

 

7. We broke the United States apart into several different city-states, including one led by a powerful paranormal, called Para-Nation.

 

Of course this was over many years and many different characters. Still, we had our share of upheaval.

[gojira]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

1. Genocide in Africa/East Asia.

 

2 - 10. A Republican White House Administration.

 

 

Sorry... I'm bitter...

[Korvar]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

Volcanic eruption / earthquake in the Pacific Ocean, causing massive Tsunami that devastate the Pacific Rim. For extra fun and frolics, a supervillain could set up eruptions in both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, and basically destroy all coastal civilisation.

[Zeropoint]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

What, exactly, are mere 350-point heroes supposed to do about any of this stuff?

[jtelson]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

What' date=' exactly, are mere 350-point heroes supposed to do about any of this stuff?[/quote']

 

Superdrugs: Track source and shut them down. Continue to find new labs and shut them down.

 

Engineered Viruses: Track down labs or patient zeros to find/engineer cures and vaccines.

 

Asteroid: Armegedon it (Shuttle, Nuke, Heros in space suits...)

 

Rift in Time: Find out who's responsible, close rift while protecting people on both sides from contamination.

 

Alien Invaders: Fight 'em off, alternatively establish a resistance.

 

Volcanic/Seismic disturbances: Find out whols responsible, turn off the gizmos.

 

These are the things 350 point heros are built to handle!

[Zeropoint]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

Maybe I've just had a bad supers GM, but in my experience, supers are pretty much only good for pounding on bad guys. Any kind of investigative work would be better left for the agencies with the training, resources, and personnel to handle that stuff, wouldn't it?

 

"Investigation" in the games I played meant stumbling around a few dead ends, then waiting for the GM to get tired of nothing happening and having an NPC move the plot along.

 

Hmm, there's always the old pulp standby . . . you beat a name out of someone, then you beat a name out of THAT guy, etc., until you come to the end of the chain.

[Hermit]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

Maybe I've just had a bad supers GM, but in my experience, supers are pretty much only good for pounding on bad guys. Any kind of investigative work would be better left for the agencies with the training, resources, and personnel to handle that stuff, wouldn't it?

 

"Investigation" in the games I played meant stumbling around a few dead ends, then waiting for the GM to get tired of nothing happening and having an NPC move the plot along.

 

Hmm, there's always the old pulp standby . . . you beat a name out of someone, then you beat a name out of THAT guy, etc., until you come to the end of the chain.

 

I can sympathize. I'm no good at mysteries myself, either running them or playing in them. Sometimes I counter this as a player with powers that REALLY help with investigative work (Retro-cognition, the GM's nightmare, the player's relief), or by getting detective team mates. Fellow PCs who ARE good at mysteries are much appreciated even if it does mean many of my concepts twiddle their thumbs waiting for the time they can be useful again.

[input.jack]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

Maybe I've just had a bad supers GM' date=' but in my experience, supers are pretty much only good for pounding on bad guys.[/quote']

 

Youve had unspeakably bad GMs.

 

Sorry, amigo.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

I've had a lot of major disasters that the PCs had to deal with or handle. Some include:

 

1. A killer fog that would surround a city killing everyone in the city...

I swear I read that as "Killer frog" at first.

 

Now that I read it correctly it makes more sense.

 

 

 

 

...but it's not as terrifying.

[Zed-F]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

Superdrugs: Track source and shut them down. Continue to find new labs and shut them down.

 

Engineered Viruses: Track down labs or patient zeros to find/engineer cures and vaccines.

 

Asteroid: Armegedon it (Shuttle, Nuke, Heros in space suits...)

 

Rift in Time: Find out who's responsible, close rift while protecting people on both sides from contamination.

 

Alien Invaders: Fight 'em off, alternatively establish a resistance.

 

Volcanic/Seismic disturbances: Find out whols responsible, turn off the gizmos.

 

These are the things 350 point heros are built to handle!

 

The problem is that these were specifically described as global menaces. Most 350 point starting heroes simply do not have the power or especially the mobility to fight a global threat. You have to set things up so that the 350-point heroes can nip things in the bud, or else it's really a problem that's out of their league.

 

Superdrugs -- do you really think a superdrug with global distribution is just going to have one lab producing it? Hardly. Now if it's a drug plaguing a city, which might potentially become a global problem at some unspecified future date, that's more reasonable.

 

Engineered Viruses -- Again, if it's already a global problem, it's too late for 350-point heroes to have much impact in most cases. If you are preventing from getting released, well-positioned 350 point heroes could get the job done, but then we're not talking about a global threat yet, just a potentially global one.

 

Asteroid -- silly. Why wouldn't the government just call in a higher powered team who's more capable of handling this sort of thing? Unless your heroes are the only team in existence, this seems contrived.

 

Rift In Time -- Too unspecific. Where's this rift? How is it a global scale threat? If stuff is spewing out of it and hitting the whole world, just the cleanup from it alone is more than most 350-point heroes can handle. Again, nip in the bud before it becomes a global problem and you're talking.

 

Alien Invaders -- 350 point heroes against entire armies of aliens? Not likely. How about deactivating their dimensional portal and preventing them from arriving in the first place? Much better.

 

Volcanic/Seismic disturbances -- If it's a worldwide problem, with many locations, no. Not unless there are whole bunches of teams all doing the same thing at once. Send them after the local device producing the local volcanic/seismic disturbances, and you're good.

 

-----

 

350-point heroes can be great at solving problems before they get to a global scale. But if you want to talk about actual global menaces, after they've proven themselves to have a global impact -- i.e. not just nipping things in the bud before they do have a global impact -- you're going to need to call in the JLA equivalents to deal with the problem.

[Drhoz]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

Ten Global Disasters that could plausibly happen in our games.

 

1. The Apparatus (horribly versatile and secretly sentient device that ruptures realities to copy itself across the multiverse, as a side effect of whatever the NPCS are using it for, finally gets past the testing stage.

 

2. The Seelie Court complete their planned reopening of the Four Sidhe Gates, and reclaim Earth as part of their domain.

 

3. Vitus finally gets pissed off enough to cast Global Judgement, and expands it's effects to catrate all humans instead of just the ones he thought nobody in their right mind would really miss

 

4. ADAM aka Fred (aka a thinly disguised Akira whose's just been informed he's been kept in a sensory deprivation tank his entire life - my bad ) goes on an exponential destructive spree wiping out everybody that isn't his friend.

 

5. Cthulhu's little brother gets out of bed

 

6. Vitus decides that the only way to recreate his universe is to overwrite this one (surprisingly cheap to do, too)

 

7. Champions Earth gets used as a battleground between a half-dozen different realities, some of whom then decide it's best use is as a cordon sanitaire and try to "scorched earth" it.

 

8. Mechanon switches off the sun.

 

9. Marvel Zombies.

 

10. Somebody actually manages to kill one of the superheroes that's really a world-maintaining god. Our Storm Lord would be one such.

[Pariah]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

How about this: An alien armada shows up, claiming to want to use the Earth as an outpost in their war against a 'hostile' alien race, but their real intention is to destroy the planet to make a hyperspace bypass into the heart of enemy territory.

 

Oh, wait, that's already been done....

[input.jack]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOU team might encounter...

 

How about this: An alien armada shows up, claiming to want to use the Earth as an outpost in their war against a 'hostile' alien race, but their real intention is to destroy the planet to make a hyperspace bypass into the heart of enemy territory.

 

Oh, wait, that's already been done....

 

Twice.

[Bluefire]

Re: 10 Global disasters that YOUR team might encounter...

 

What' date=' exactly, are mere 350-point heroes supposed to do about any of this stuff?[/quote']

 

I was not thinking of individual heroes tackling these events, but rather a team or coallition of heroes.

 

Isn't it part of the mystique of superheroes, being able to overcome what was not thought possible? Its the inner strength that all of us normals wish we had. Its the magic of comics!