GMing for a new group

[Fedifensor]

(The following is for my Catalyst campaign running in Brighton, CO - my players may want to stay away to avoid spoiling the plot)

 

Hello, everyone. I just started my new Champions campaign (my first in 10+ years), and the origin session seemed to go pretty well. One player wants to change characters after belatedly realizing that he doesn't want to play a character in high school - too many bad memories. Aside from that, things are going pretty well. However, I'm trying to decide where to go from here. For the first session, I spent my time dealing with the origin of each of the characters, followed by a short combat. Now I need to decide where to go next.

 

Two of the characters (Fidget and Luminescence) have a link to the high school - one is a teacher sponsoring the Math Club, and the other is a student in the club. After winning the county math competition, the club got a tour of OmniCorp's new experimental physics laboratory. The teacher sweet-talked the tour guide into a tour of the partially-completed particle accelerator, which ended up turning on (thanks to an 'oops' moment from the PC student). That ended up giving powers to two of the characters. The other two characters both have a Public ID. One (Ironfist) gained his powers a few weeks earlier, and the last one (Miracle) gained her powers during the fight.

 

The battle was against a high-power villain named Hiroshima. The characters were able to hold him off until reinforcements arrived, driving him off. They have not become a group at this point, though they have fought together (for the most part). So, the next adventure needs to be something to get all the characters together, and hopefully convince them that working as a group is better than working apart.

 

Here's the cast of characters:

Fidget is the 'B' student of the math club. She's a speedster (33 Dex, 7 Spd) with a top speed of roughly 400 MPH and a few speedster tricks. The player is new to HERO.

Luminescence is the math teacher, with light-based powers. A pretty standard energy projector, though she does have Desolidification. The player has played a Champions campaign with a different GM, so she has experience with the system.

Ironfist is a hybrid brick/martial artist (40 STR plus boxing). Gained his powers from the destruction of a mystical amulet that permanently turned him into a metal form. Full Life Support, fully resistant (but not hardened) defenses. New to HERO, but likes digging into rules. I just gave him my old 5E (non-revised) book.

Miracle is a brick (55 STR) with a small (15-pt) multipower that lets her boost her capabilities in one area at a time. If her multipower is in armor, she has more PD and ED than Ironfist. If it is in Dex, only Fidget surpasses her. If it is in strength (raising it to 65), she does more damage than any other character. The player is my wife, so she's a veteran of multiple HERO campaigns (though not one to dig into the rules).

(Player X) Has not decided on his new character, but will probably have it be the tour guide that took the math club to the particle accelerator. The player has played a Champions campaign with a different GM, so he also has experience with the system.

 

Right now, I'm thinking of a more mundane situation for the second session - a simple bank robbery by thugs with guns, or something similar. However, I don't know if that will be a sufficient incentive to team up. Any ideas?

[csyphrett]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

how about a bank robbery by thugs with big guns? It already falls into what you are thinking and opens the way to other lines.

CES

[map_fl]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

I second the bank robbery idea. Something to let the player characters shine.

[Fedifensor]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

how about a bank robbery by thugs with big guns? It already falls into what you are thinking and opens the way to other lines.

CES

 

So, when you say 'big guns', how big should I go? Submachine guns? Assault rifles? Grenades?

[map_fl]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

Maybe a para-military group is robbing local banks. The players stop the group, and then a second robbery takes place. The characters then team up to investigate. Perhaps show how each person can contribute in the investigation or give them each a clue or lead, before the adventure starts.

[csyphrett]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

So' date=' when you say 'big guns', how big should I go? Submachine guns? Assault rifles? Grenades?[/quote']

 

Glitter boy boom guns that can shoot through a tank and are totally man portable. The sky's the limit.

CES

[Fedifensor]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

Maybe a para-military group is robbing local banks. The players stop the group' date=' and then a second robbery takes place. The characters then team up to investigate. Perhaps show how each person can contribute in the investigation or give them each a clue or lead, before the adventure starts.[/quote']

That sounds good. I'll probably make it fairly simple, since it will be their first time working together (the previous encounter was more "firing at the same target" than working together). Now I just have to decide whether to have everyone coincidentally meet at the location of the first robbery, or come up with some other way to get them together.

 

Clues will be interesting, but I have multiple PCs with Streetwise, and I think everyone has 30+ points of skills. I think I'll be able to come up with at least one clue for each PC to follow.

 

Paramilitary gives me a lot of options, especially since several criminal organizations can get their hands on Armadillo Armor (my world's version of Turtle Armor). Which means I can have a lot of one-shot grunts, and a few tougher foes. I can also have things like bazookas and such to use against the two bricks in the party, who are basically immune to small arms fire.

[ParagonAlpha]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

How about there have been a series of robberies.

 

The MO:

 

Normal bank robbing mooks, not too bright, no real organization skills, the sort of "gang" that are one up from robbing Circle K.

 

But they found this stuff in the back of a van. It was this really hi-tech looking stuff . An armored chest piece. A set of big armored gloves. A Anti-grav backpack. And a Big Freaking Gun.

 

Yeah one person could have worn it all but they are a "gang" so each guy got a piece.

 

So one of them is really tough, the other can hit really hard, one can fly and the other has a big nasty gun (make the gun do about 2-4 DC over the limit, but it fires slow and can't hit worth poo).

 

When the PC's finally stop the "gang" a guy in a suit and several tech-types show up with the paperwork to "resecure" their corporations stolen technology.

 

This then leads to either the group working for a tech corp or maybe the corp used the "gang" for "field testing".

 

 

Just an idea

[wyliepalmer]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

maybe one/several of the PCs is putting his/ her paycheck in the bank, or the math teacher is putting the math club's budget in

 

then they got a real reason to hunt down the robbers, even if they stop the villians, so it won't happen again...

 

turtle armor? could that be part of the last player's origin....

 

hhmmm..... thugs using the armor to swipe an ATM...

[The Monster]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

You can also twist it a bit: hostages, the bank catches on fire, the thugs find some Really Kewl Stuff in the safety-deposit boxes (mabe ParagonAlpha's battlesuit parts!), the explosive used to break the vault is too much and threatends to collapse the building, that kind of thing. Of course, any of these can be accidental or intentional on the part of the robbers.

[Fedifensor]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

Bad news - the campaign ended up foundering close to a year ago, and died with a whimper as people never had room in their schedule to pick the game back up. I think player issues were the primary reason...two players in particular just never seemed that into the game, and they were married to two of the other players.

 

Good news - I plan to do a reboot of the campaign, with new players (save for my wife, who plans to play Miracle again) as a play-by-post game. Still working on the details, but I hope to have something put together in a few weeks.

 

Now, I have to figure out a common link for the group. The high school idea is out...it didn't work so well last time, as only half of the group had strong ties to the school.

[CoreBrute]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

All of them take a vacation to Hawaii, meet each other there (never met each other before) and then they get their powers from a weird mystical volcano ritual gone away.

 

Now they have super powers, the bad guy who did the ritual has loads more power (Maybe Zorran the Artificer?) and now the heroes got to stop him.

 

They track him to the mainland, after a series of adventures with his creations, and defeat the bad guy and stop his evil plot. They then realise they work well together and start a new team.

 

See? No high school needed. If a player wants to have his own origin or a non magic one, say he had his origin before hand and came to Hawaii to investigate some disturbances or to relax with his/her family. Or the ritual activated his dormant mutant genes.

 

Was this any help?

[Fedifensor]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

All of them take a vacation to Hawaii' date=' meet each other there (never met each other before) and then they get their powers from a weird mystical volcano ritual gone away.[/quote']

Um...it may help them get together, but doesn't put them in the location I want to use for the campaign.

[1EyedJack]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

Maybe the "Accident" wasn't an accident, and now the party responcible kidnaps the PC's to disect them, steal their dna and clone them, mind wash them or what ever nasty villians do, and the PC's must cooperate to get away.

[ChemicalsReact]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

Supervillain (or Supervillain group) #1 appears, and voila! team is needed to take him (or it) down.

could be done a) just like post before this, heroes taken hostage and are fighting to free themselves or villain is too powerful for one super so he then asks for help from the others. c) like but this time government/rich businessman/ etc... holds audition or finds the supers to help with big trouble. Heroes can then be paid and/or receive helpful rewards from this power.

[Silbeg]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

So' date=' when you say 'big guns', how big should I go? Submachine guns? Assault rifles? Grenades?[/quote']

 

Depending on the tech level you are looking at for your game, I would go more "4-color" and arm the thugs with blasters. Perhaps even make it VIPER attacking the bank (or some other robbery). If not VIPER, introduce some other villainous organization into your campaign (though the players may not know that is an organization they'll be dealing with).

 

Use the "pulson blasters" from Gadgets and Gear, or standard VIPER equipment. So, 7-8d6 blaster pistols, 10-12d6 blaster rifles.

 

I prefer to stay away from mundane tech (bullet firing guns) for a couple of reasons.

 

1. Unless you are trying to point how superior the characters are to the typical "normal", a 9mm pistol or SMG has little or no chance to harm a super (assuming they have at least a modicum of rPD). This is even without dealing with the STUN lottery.
   
2. Genre-trope. Blasters, while still lethal, are more likely to KO than kill, so the legal system may deal with them differently than RKA guns. This is also why most villains don't use killing attacks (and why most are at least reluctant to kill).
   

[Silbeg]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

Bad news - the campaign ended up foundering close to a year ago, and died with a whimper as people never had room in their schedule to pick the game back up. I think player issues were the primary reason...two players in particular just never seemed that into the game, and they were married to two of the other players.

 

Good news - I plan to do a reboot of the campaign, with new players (save for my wife, who plans to play Miracle again) as a play-by-post game. Still working on the details, but I hope to have something put together in a few weeks.

 

Now, I have to figure out a common link for the group. The high school idea is out...it didn't work so well last time, as only half of the group had strong ties to the school.

 

Huh... hadn't noticed the thread necro...oops!

[Fedifensor]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

Well, my game is getting closer to its post-reboot launch. I have three players so far (including my wife, who played Miracle in the last game), and plan to recruit 2 to 3 more within the next week or two. Characters for the three are nearly done, to the point where I can start working on subplots, hunteds, etc.

 

Here are the characters. Only Miracle is done, so the others could change between now and the start of the game.

* Miracle - Superpowered cop with the classic FISS powers (flight, invulnerability, super-strength). Public ID, local celebrity.

* American Steel - Powersuit character, descendent of a WWII era hero that used a previous version of the suit (supers didn't become known to the general public until 1986 in the campaign world, so no Reputation). Secret ID, helicopter pilot. See the 'Changing Into The Powersuit' thread on this board for more details.

* Tempest - Wielder of lightning, decended from an ancient Chinese mystical heritage believed to extend back to the deities Tien Mu ('Mother of Lightning') and Lei Kung ('Duke of Thunder'). Still working on the Secret ID and personality. See the 'Lightning powers - with a big BOOM!' Thread for more details.

 

I'd like to thank everyone for the help and support. When everything is ready, I'll start a new thread for the campaign.

[Hermit]

Re: GMing for a new group

 

Good luck!