[Campaign Design] Starting Small...

[Jkeown]

... my current game is Gamma Hero, with 150pt post-apocalyptic heroes gaining mutations and high-tech gear at a frankly alarming rate. But this is the way I designed it. If someone gets Radioactive Goo on him, he developes strange abilities and we go on.

 

But what about an even more rapid rise to power? How about 50 pointers getting all sorts of power very suddenly. Normals gaining 250 pts of superpowers in a weird accident, or normals in a modern world who discover alien dimensions and the bizarre paths to power that lurk hidden just beyond sight.

 

How would you go about introducing your players to such a world? My folks reject it practically out of hand. They don't want to play as those folks before the accident, the big reveal, the Dark Secret that changes their lives in an instant.

 

They want, in other words, to start out as Heroes and that's it. I think it would be more fun for them to know nothing about the world and let them wonder for an episode or two where all this is leading. Suspense is often a rarity in gaming, methinks.

[Flames]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

I think the mistake was letting players in on the fact that they were going to develop powers at all. It might have been a pleasant surprise.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

I think the mistake was letting players in on the fact that they were going to develop powers at all. It might have been a pleasant surprise.

You have to be careful with this kind of bait-and-switch, though. If the players don't know what the "theme" of the campaign is ultimately going to be, then they won't know whether they'd want to play in that or not.

 

For example, I don't usually care for games in extremely dystopian settings. So let's say a game started out as a near-future sci-fi game, with PCs as astronauts in interplanetary missions. I'm all up for that. But then a massive solar flare destroys all civilization on earth, killing billions and mutating the survivors. Our crew of astronauts was in space at the time, and return home to this wasteland. Turns out the GM planned all along to turn it into a dark post-apocalyptic game. But if I'd known that's what it was going to be, I wouldn't have played in it, because I know I wouldn't enjoy that.

[archermoo]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

I think the mistake was letting players in on the fact that they were going to develop powers at all. It might have been a pleasant surprise.

 

Gotta agree with Derek on this one. Telling people that they are going to be playing one type of campaign, when in reality they are signing up for an entirely different type of campaign is a great way to alienate your players.

[casualplayer]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

This is done in bad D&D games by having the shopkeepers be retired Paladins and the street urchins be 10th level Rogues. You can only be blindsided so many times before you become paranoid. The precautions start taking longer than the adventures.

 

It's not that your players want to feel superior but they do want to feel necessary. If the town sheriff, or the town drunk for that matter, can defeat the mutant barbarians after a goopbath the players might as well stay home.

 

Plus if radioactive goop makes you more powerful, you have to justify why those already with power haven't secured or destroyed all the goop already. Powerful people don't like to share.

[Sean Waters]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

Bah! Players are cattle who need to be led by the nose ring to greener pastures!

 

Sorry. Working on a megalomanic vilain and got a little too into the role

 

To be honest though, whilst I can certianly imagine players being attracted to a style of play (action, social interaction, investigation, etc.) I can't imagine why the genre should matter a lot. I mean I tend to love superheroes, but then I also love lots of other genres: I tend to be a talker.

 

I mean, even if 99.99% of the population get wiped out that is still 600000 people to interact with. That's going to take me a while.

 

Now I do tend to shy away from Call of Cthulu, but that is because I don't like the rules premise, and I also tend to shy away from CyberPunk, but that is because the GM who usually runs it likes to get people into situations where you have to kill everything or be killed, and I can't stand spending hours drooling over cyberware catalogues.

 

Anyway, who is to say that a post-apocalyptic society is pigeon-holeable in any event. Not all apocalypses leave the world a dark and blasted place. We ran a DnD game in a post apocalypse world, which was very cool. About 150 years before, everyone lost their memories. Massive death toll (mainly from starvation), but the survivors have their own intersting little societies and their own problems, and are living in a world where magic and magic items were very commonplace...but no one remembers that.

 

Anyway, to turn to the original question (at last), how long are you planning to run the game before they become superpowered?

 

I have both run and played in games where you gain your powers in the introductory sessions, and I have always found it very enjoyable, but then I've had good players and good GMs.

 

Unless the players have some reason for their dislike of the idea, I'm for persuading them to have a go. You can always promise that if they really are not enjoying it by week 2 then you will cut-scene the whole powers thing (prepare a short story hand out).

 

Whether or not you spring something like this on them as Flames suggests is a matter for the GM who knows his players, but that is more of a style thing than a genre thing.

 

I ran a game once where the PCs were elite commandos sent in to quell a prison riot, and in the course of it they got superpowers. I had not told them that was the plan. One or two were quite disappointed at the change of direction - they had been enjoying the normals!

 

Ultimately any game is about trust, and if you have that, feel free to wander where you will.

 

Like cattle.

[Derek Hiemforth]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

Anyway' date=' who is to say that a post-apocalyptic society is pigeon-holeable in any event. Not all apocalypses leave the world a dark and blasted place.[/quote']I didn't say they did. I said I didn't like "extremely dystopian settings," and posited a situation where the GM planned all along to turn it into a "dark post-apocalyptic" game. I didn't say that all post-apocalyptic settings were "extremely dystopian" or "dark"... just that I wouldn't want to play in ones that were.

[archermoo]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

I didn't say they did. I said I didn't like "extremely dystopian settings' date='" and posited a situation where the GM planned all along to turn it into a "dark post-apocalyptic" game. I didn't say that [b']all[/b] post-apocalyptic settings were "extremely dystopian" or "dark"... just that I wouldn't want to play in ones that were.

 

For me it is less being roped into a setting I'm not interested in than being set up for one type of game only to have it changed on me. Whether it is changed to a setting I enjoy or not.

 

Part of it goes back to the reason I like the Hero system to start with. I get to choose what kind of character I want to play. And that, to me at least, depends on me making an informed choice based on what the game is going to be like. If I am lied to about what the game is, then I can't make an informed decision about what kind of character I want to play.

 

Which doesn't even touch on the fact that being lied to is one of my hot-buttons...

[Lord Mhoram]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

 

How would you go about introducing your players to such a world? My folks reject it practically out of hand. They don't want to play as those folks before the accident, the big reveal, the Dark Secret that changes their lives in an instant.

 

They want, in other words, to start out as Heroes and that's it. I think it would be more fun for them to know nothing about the world and let them wonder for an episode or two where all this is leading. Suspense is often a rarity in gaming, methinks.

 

Tell the players up front. The characters are in suspense, but the players aren't. That goes along with "don't like to your players" that has been mentioned above, as well as a campaign bait and switch.

 

My wife is trying to set up a mystery game. She doesn't want to tell us any real details on what the game is going to entail (as we are good enough to put it together with minor hints), but trying to get character builds done is nearly impossible - because we don't know what kind of things we are going into. We've spent months trying to get characters built and I know that in order for some of the players to build a character, she has had to let out more info than she wants to.

 

I can guarantee that if she had us build agents (in the complete dark) and then pulled a switch, the campaign would die then and there.

 

Don't give the characters details, just say "I want to start at agent level (or less) and things will develop. Trust me. If things don't work out fun for everyone, I'll make changes and accelerate the plan." Then they can play the weaker characters for a session or two, and then do a rebuild.

[Manic Typist]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

Or, say "Hey guys, I want to give something a try. It's experimental, but I think you guys would enjoy it. Design X type of character, and keep in mind that the character has to be open enough to be open to something new."

[bobrunnicles]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

Or just flat out tell them that they are starting as normals but you plan on running a superheroic campaign (or whatever) and part of the fun (assuming you get a buy-in) will be the sheer anticipation factor of how you engineer their changes. For example, have a nuclear reactor accident nearby to one of them, or have one of them inherit a large amount of money and the key to a hidden hi-tech laboratory, or one of them simply gets run over by a crashing truck full of chemical waste etc then tell them they now have the extra 250 points, have a blast.

 

In some ways this idea reminds me of the nWoD setup where the first step in playing any of the supernatural games is to first create a normal human character and then overlay it with the supernatural template. They even espouse on how it could potentially be cool to play out your characters last few days as a 'normal' before undergoing whatever change you have lined up. This is similar conceptually to what you propose from the sound of it.

 

I would play in a heartbeat!

[Sean Waters]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

I'm mad keen on Hero and I enjoy beilding characters, but most of those I play with are not so bothered about mechanics and character builds as about role playing and basically just having a bit of a social evening and a laugh. My lot wouldn't mind the old bait and switch at all. I'm not lying to them if I don't say 'This is an Agent Level Game and will remain so'. If I can't, as a GM, introduce all sorts of twists and turns then what am I doing there?

 

I know some people get obsessed about 'their' character, but frankly I see it as giving a greater degree of opportunity to express and develop the character of the character, which is far more important than the abilities they have IMO.

 

I mean, are they going to get upset if I (as GM playing an NPC) shoot them with a bullet, disabling their left arm? If they can put up with that then surely suddenly being able to fly should be positively entrancing.

 

Anyway, one of my favourite ponders is: what would happen if I sudddenly got superpowers? There is a world of difference betweeen creating a backstory that explains how you reacted and actually role playing it as it happens.

 

Of course everyone is perfectly entitled to prefer a different way, I'm just saying that as both a GM and player in this sort of situation, it can be most enjoyable.

[archermoo]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

I'm mad keen on Hero and I enjoy beilding characters, but most of those I play with are not so bothered about mechanics and character builds as about role playing and basically just having a bit of a social evening and a laugh. My lot wouldn't mind the old bait and switch at all. I'm not lying to them if I don't say 'This is an Agent Level Game and will remain so'. If I can't, as a GM, introduce all sorts of twists and turns then what am I doing there?

 

I know some people get obsessed about 'their' character, but frankly I see it as giving a greater degree of opportunity to express and develop the character of the character, which is far more important than the abilities they have IMO.

 

I mean, are they going to get upset if I (as GM playing an NPC) shoot them with a bullet, disabling their left arm? If they can put up with that then surely suddenly being able to fly should be positively entrancing.

 

Anyway, one of my favourite ponders is: what would happen if I sudddenly got superpowers? There is a world of difference betweeen creating a backstory that explains how you reacted and actually role playing it as it happens.

 

Of course everyone is perfectly entitled to prefer a different way, I'm just saying that as both a GM and player in this sort of situation, it can be most enjoyable.

 

Oh, I'm considerably less concerned with the game changing my character than I am with the Ref telling me I'm in for one type of campaign, only to switch it to something else midstream. To me at least the "and it won't change" is an understood part of a campaign/genre description. If it isn't there, that needs to be expressly spelled out. I realize that not everyone works like me, and some people enjoy the kind of thing you're talking about. I'm just not one of them, and I try to make sure people I play with know that.

 

I'm a good enough role player that I can make a normal level character with the intent that he will be gaining superpowers at some point, and if the character doesn't know it is coming up, I can actually play him that way. I don't need to be lied to about what kind of game it is going to be to be able to enjoy a "characters suddenly gain superpowers" type game. I don't have to be surprised by it for my character to be surprised.

[Bygoneyrs]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

Look the best way to make everyone happy is be upfront and honest with your players and

tell them what you are planning in the scope of the campaign. If someone doesn't want to

play then for yourself and the willing players cut them free and get another player to fill

the gap if you need one.

 

Penn

[Super Squirrel]

Re: [Campaign Design] Starting Small...

 

The biggest problem you might encounter is giving the characters the powers you want to give them. Create three or four power groups PER player and give them a couple to pick from. Nothing sucks more than getting a power you don't like.