Adventure - For The Children

[map_fl]

If you play in my campaign - go away, now!

 

Thoughts, ideas, elaboration, and feedback always welcome. Enjoy!

 

map

 

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For The Children

 

Things are slow crime-wise around the city. The Champions are invited to take part in a charity event to raise money for a children's hospital. Of course, the team agrees - it's for the children (which should be repeated a lot during the introduction..."after all, it's for the children" and all that).

 

They show up in the park and there are hundreds of people gathered, including some of the wealthiest and upper crust of the city. One of the city's well known and respected news casters, or maybe the mayor, emcee the event. They bring out some donated pieces of art and such, but then he announces the main event.

 

The people will be able to bid on the services of one of the Champions (or team) for one day. "just think about it folks, need your house cleaned in a jiffy? Well, Kenetic here can move quick as lightning and can clean up your house in mere seconds! Got a big tree stump that needs clearing from your back yard? Well, Ironclad here is just the one to bulldoze that sucker right out of the ground. Maybe you're just an elderly woman looking for a dinner and dancing companion - Knighthawk is here for your evening activities!" so people start bidding, and you can make it sound as bad as the examples above - stuff that would totally degrade the team by trivializing their super powers or just making them uncomfortable, like having an 80yr old blue haired lady licking her lips as she bids on one of the heroes she has a crush on...each one will raise a couple thousand dollars - one might only raise a hundred or so, and one might raise up to 10K. This is basically a bachelor auction - think of the one from Bill Murray's Groundhog Day.

 

As the last team member is being auctioned off, and the last bid is being placed... "2000 going once, twice..." "ONE MILLION DOLLARS!" will come a voice from the back of the crowd...then, a major villain, like Dr Destroyer, with black cape and all, will stride through the crowd as they ooh and ahh and cringe back from him. He moves to the front of the audience and steps up onto the stage and takes the microphone away from the host. "I will pay ONE MILLION DOLLARS for ALL of the Champions to come and spend the day with me".

 

Do the heroes attack when the villain shows up?? He hasn't harmed anyone or done anything recently... will they take him up on his offer? After all, it's for the children! Will they work something out to keep their "contracts" with their other bidders, or use this as an excuse to get out of the other deals??

 

Dr. Destroyer would allow them to keep their commitments to the other bidders if they ask..."Very well, I will allow you to fulfill your trivial commitments to these sheep - I only ask that you appear before me two days hence at sunrise and will attend me until the following morning."

 

There the players will have time to attend to the other bidders won auctions, investigate what the villain is up to, and plan to meet with him at the prearranged time.

 

At the meeting time the villain will arrange to have the heroes brought to his temporary base. He can do this by sending them a remote controlled vehicle or simply taking over the player’s own vehicle and by way of remote control fly it to his base.

Once they arrive to the layer the Villian will tell the heroes of their duties. He will assure them none of them will be “permanently injured” followed by an evil laugh. The villain plans to run the heroes through his newest invention – The Gauntlet. This will be a maze or something similar to test the heroes’ abilities and defeat them in combat. The Gauntlet will include some type of device that will fight the players. Each time they defeat it it gets better. Like the giant robot in the Incredibles or even the lovable Mechanon.

 

First encounter would be with the device

 

Second encounter with something else

 

Third encounter with new improved device

 

Fourth encounter with something else

 

Fifth Encounter the heroes make it to the end where the third device appears. Here the players destroy the heart of The Gauntlet – probably a super computer. The main villain will be angered and intrigued by their success he wants to study the data to see what went wrong.

[assault]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

Do the heroes attack when the villain shows up?? He hasn't harmed anyone or done anything recently... will they take him up on his offer?

 

Presumably there are no warrants or the like out on him. In that case, attacking him is out of the question.

 

Making sure the crowd is safe is the first priority.

 

There is no way in the wide, wide world, that my heroes would play along with this jerk.

 

On the other hand, you might be able to talk your players into it. Or they might simply attack the villain. You know them - I don't.

 

This idea might work fabulously well, or it might just end in a generic slugfest. Either is fine.

 

The only criticism I have of the idea is that it is unpredictable. I prefer a slightly greater degree of railroading.

[hfergus]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

My characters would say "Maybe. It depends on what you want. We reserve the right to say no and you would get your money back." Given what he asks in this scenario, they would say no. Let's see, they could get killed or badly injured if they fail (Yeah, he said there would be no "permanent" damage, but they would not exactly trust him.) Even if they just get hurt, he could do something nasty while they are recovering. If they suceeded, he has more of the idea of what they can do. Nope. Won't happen.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

If I were a player, I'd also worry about what's happening back in Millennium City while I'm hanging with the Big D. Even if the tasks he put me to were mundane.

 

"You laugh that I paid a million dollars to procure your services in merely cleaning my base. (And Nighthawk, don't think I didn't notice you making copies of my death ray blueprint.) While it was moderately inconvenient that Defender jammed my sensors so I couldn't get decent scans of each of you using your powers, I still feel it well worth the money.

 

You see, while you were dusting and vacuuming, my minons had free reign over your pitiful metropolis..."

[tribe]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

I think the characters would agree to the request - at least, they would in the comics.

 

BoloofEarth has a great twist though, something which would give the scenario an extra reason for the supervillain to take such a risk.

 

Good stuff, map_fl

[map_fl]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

You are all right. More realistic players might hate this idea. It felt somehow comic book to me. I certainly would not force anything on the players. Dr. D could easily force them through the gauntlet. IF anyone tries this with their group tell me how it goes. I would also like to say the idea came froma player in my game I liked it and thought I would share.

 

I need to flesh out the gauntlet. I would like something different than a rebuilding robot - to much like Mechanon. What do you think?

[assault]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

I think the characters would agree to the request - at least' date=' they would in the comics.[/quote']

 

I'm not so sure. I think "in the comics" it would generally take a bit of extra coercion if the villain was known as such. And if they were wanted criminals, forget about voluntary cooperation.

 

If they weren't things might be different.

 

It might be interesting to read up on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

[dustytomes]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

I think It mite work better with a "New" supervillan. But you would need to tease the player's with the new bad guy first, just enough to get them curious about this new mysterious person.

[psychonaut_raz]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

I agree with dustytomes....if an established big-name villain approached any one of my characters with this, there's no way they would blithely go along with it. A more unknown one, there might be more leeway if the heroes could be convinced to give him the benefit of the doubt..

[map_fl]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

So you guys have successfully persuaded me away from having a major villain show up at the auction and bid on the characters. So, this leaves the adventure idea dangling, and we can’t have that, can we?

 

The auction goes on as written…just as the last auctions ends a mysterious figure appears and offers one million dollars for the heroes. He agrees to let them fulfill the previously won contracts, and asks them to meet him in one day….

 

How does this end?

Who is the mysterious man?

What does he want?

Maybe somthing to keep with the "it's for the children" theme.

 

To keep the humor part of the intro, this could be FoxBat. Does FoxBat have that kind of money? What would he have the characters do? Ideas?

[JmOz]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

One wway around being able to still use a master villain is if in the past you have established a soft spot for the cause.

 

I made one of the members of GRAB an orphan so I could run a cristmas charity story (They went around steeling gifts for orphans, minor moral problem of do we arrest them, everything worked out afterwards)

[map_fl]

Re: Adventure - For The Children

 

I had an idea for this adventure seed…Teleios would be a great villain for the adventure. Obviously as most of you said, if he showed up himself the heroes would beat him down on the spot. So, he would send a mysterious clone to bid on the heroes. Maybe a clone of someone famous, Mark Cuban, although my players might beat Cuban down too !

 

Teleos has a new creature to test, he sends the clone to bid on the characters and then to trick them into testing out his new creature in combat.

 

For the cloned beast I am think some type of creature with adaptive DNA. As it is touched by something it analyzes the DNA and makes it part of its own. Perhaps a biological version of this: IHR/Genocide Robot, Minuteman Prime

 

After the players beat the creature down, they realize how deadly the thing is, they try to figure out why Cuban did this. They learn Teleios is involved, then track down his lab, and destroy the creature’s embryos.

 

As I type this, I had a second idea for the creature. Make the creature like the one in the Hell Boy movie. The one that layed seeds in Hell Boy during the first fight. Then, every time you kill one, a new one is hatched.