Champions games you've run

[Arkham]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

In chronological order:

Galactic Champions

First getting into Hero with 5th ed. and I wanted to see how far we could push the system. 700 points to start, didn't have any concept of active point caps or damage class limits yet...

The roster was The Dragon, a huge dragon with a 10d6 RKA AOE Cone breath weapon, Solar, the escaped herald to a cosmic entity that devoured deities, Captain Havock, Iron Man's gear with Batman's attitude, Magelord, a techno-mage born of the faerie king, Master Wo, ancient chinese sorcerer with a VPP and staged multiform into DBZ style crazyness, Shaman, a gay native american possessed of the powers of an ancient shaman and possessed by the White Devil, and Uber, a guy with guns who was replaced by Golem, a modern creation combining kaballah and the finest Israeli super-technology.

The game ended when we figured we had a suitable grasp of the system and how things should ( and should NOT ) be balanced... And when Golem broke a planet in half with his body.

 

West Coast Supers

Superheroic reality TV show contestants becoming protectors of San Francisco.

Roster included: Riptide, Dr. Dweomer, Eternal Dragon, Spartacus, Weather Girl, Krunch, Major Smashing ( npc turned villainous later ), and Repent.

 

West Coast Supers Season II

Reforming after a break and some drama, continuing to protect SF from the forces of evil. This time, the villains defeated last season are teaming up as the West Coast Villains!

Roster included: Dr. Dweomer, Eternal Dragon, Mauler, Incubus, Repent, Justice Red, with special guest stars Eyebeam, Phenomenon and Relativity.

 

The Mystics Game

The Watchers of the Void are powerful mystics watching over the planet to stop world-destroying threats. But they are also overlooking the more local and insidious problems until they get out of control. Mr. Wise has brought together a group of overlooked mystics and related constructs to defend against what the Watchers ignore. Currently in progress.

Roster includes: Dr. Mystic, graduate of the collegium arcane and professional mage. It was a career choice. Sephiroth, kabbalah practitioner and invoker of the angels of the lord. Patches the superstrong zombie, Former supervillain slain and rebuilt by his villainous cohorts, has had 50 years to rethink his lifestyle choices. Valour, atavism of valour, living human emotion. Special guest: Dr. Halloween

[hfergus]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

The Enigmas version 1

 

Silver - bronze. Very episodic, but continuity worked. Doctor Destroyer popped up when I wanted them to go "Oh dear God!" No real theme, just fun. The name of the group came from a news report that called the group "a bunch of enigmas" and the name stuck. Characters: Volt, over 60 years old, ligtning based flying energy caster. Sunburst, later Phoenix (when he rose "from the ashes" after a self- imposed radiation accident) flying heat and light based energy caster. Sunburst was mainly heat, Phoenix more light. Heavyweight - brick. Bug - think Spiderman. Futurian - (not mine, my current one is him slightly changed) awesome against machine (mind control, etc), almost useless if no machines present, Olorin (Yup that guy) large VPP mage. Ran 5 years, then I had to move. Good times.

 

The Enigmas version 2

 

Silver - bronze. Mainly episodic, one theme was random dimensional travel upon occasion - dimensional bondaries were breaking down caused mainly by Demon trying to summon demons. I started with Volt from above as last survivor of Doctor Destroyer attack of previous group, kept name. Olorin walked through a gate caused by the dimensional troubles, and could not get back home, but could travel between other dimensions. Same as above. Acapella and Wiseheart alien energy projectors using sound (Wiswheart was pretty much pure defense). Blade, skill mavin and martial artist. (almost suspicion personified) And Leadman- brick with "It's not going to work" attitude but tried anyway. I did a lot of crossovers with the dimension travel. They visited, among others: Star Trek word, between TOS and next gen, with the Klingons helping out in an alien invasion(!), Babylon 5 world, where we helped them against the Shadows, two different Nazi worlds (Nazis won in both, but were "good" guys in one against the bad US. They were not racist in this wolrd.),Faerie (more than once) Horror world (The Old Ones had come) - we just got out of there, backworld (Your group is duped, but evil. Teamed up with Doctor Preserver - a good Doctor Destroyer) and others I forget. Kinda lost interest and went to D&D (I know, shame on me) May someday use the endgame I came up with.

 

The Misfit League

 

Current and very new, mainly episodic and currently running the King Cobra scenario. 9-11 has just occurred, and the destruction of Detroit has yet to happen (and will). Silver to bronze with whispers of iron. Characters - Volt again, but alternate universe. Same powers though. Olorin, again arriving through a gate. Gem, a female wearing an alien battlesuit (and most poeple think it is a male alien due to voice distortion and suit looking like an alien) Disarray, mind controller (one command - be confused!) and tk powers. Wonders how she got into this, and bit unconfident. Black Tiger, martial artist with gap in memory and suspicious of authority. Futurian (a slightly different version than above - a bit better if no machines around, a bit less powerful with machines) is yet to appear. Two other character, Raptorian (shape shifts into giant velociraptor)and Orion, who has a lot of animal powers and looks vaguely leonine. Altered by unknown geneticist (probably Telios) are also yet to appear, controlled by players, not me. (Disarray and Gem are not mine.)

[jtelson]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Sentry (Also Sentry: Halifax, Sentry: Moscow): Originally run in Marvel Superheroes I ran in this world for about 15 years across 4 different groups. A reasonably 'vanilla' Champions campaign setting where the heros work for Sentry: A Division of Penbrook Industries. Hero's working for a mostly benevolent corporation which became more corrupt as time (and groups) progressed. By the end it had a huge history to draw from.

 

Galactic Defense Corp: Four color in space. Heroes belong to an independant organization tasked with maintaining peace and order. The group actually made this campaign far darker than intended.

 

The Psi Lords of Metro City: Players are modern (2006) super powered cops in Metro City, constructed on the ruins of Detroit after a metahuman terrorist attack nuked it in the early 80's. They slowly begin to realize that the city is controlled by a group of waring telepaths but who can they trust with this knowledge. Super Conspiracy gone mad (bwahh hahahaha)

 

Heracles' Children: Supers in Greece at the end of the Mythic Age. The Gods have been become distant, disgusted at the savagery exhibited in the Trojan War. Achilles and many heroes died at Troy or in the storms afterwards. Agamemnon assassinated. Odysseus missing. Civil disorder threatens the weakened Achaean kings and the now the Heraclidae are massing great hordes of men far to the North and exerting more subtle influence here at home. The Heroic age is coming to a close and the world hovers on the brink of chaos. Only those few of the Heracles’ descendants who have by virtue or guile escaped exile stand between light and a long age of darkness.

[Sketchpad]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Sheesh ... where to start ...just for Champions:

The New Watchguard/The Watch: Same world as the Watchguard. New group of heroes taking up the mantle and setting up shop in the old base. Took on old and new enemies and saw some rotating membership. '95-98ish?

The Watchguard: I think this is the name of the game ... ran for about a year and eventually split into 2 groups, A Team and B Team. I remember running bi-monthly crossovers with 15 members .. it was a hoot! '93-'95. PSI was a big enemy of these guys, as well as a few other Classic Enemies

The Sentinels: JLA/X-Men style campaign with a group of starting heroes. Part of a larger world with other heroes. Used a bunch of Champions 3rd ed material for this. Golden Avenger ended up working with Genocide, mutant rights were in bad shape, very Iron Age. Ran in early 90s to mid 90s.

The New Protectors: Same world ... more of a JLA feel. Short lived and eventually shifted into the Sentinels campaign.

The Protectors:This was one of the first campaigns I ran for Champions. Co-GMed it with my buddy Ken back in the mid-80s and crossed-over with other systems (all of which had a version of the Protectors, each with a gate to another world). Crazy fun crossovers Ran for 3 years until Ken moved.

 

I have a few other campaigns that I've ran, including a brief one I ran a year or so ago, but don't have my notes ... and also mind you, these are just the Champs campaigns as teh Bunny asked

[ParagonAlpha]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Favorite Moments:

 

Since it's discussion about past campaigns. As GM's were there any you know "magic moments" that solidified the campaign or drove a story home for you? Since Metahumans Rising is just getting started I really don't have a strong unifying, that was the uber cool moment yet. How about you out there in internet land?

 

Hmmm well I ran a Dr. Destroyer Trilogy as 3 separate one-shots (the group had moved away to different states so we could only get together once a year.)

 

After a climatic battle with Dr. Destroyer, one of the PC's, name the Altruist, died while taking the Dr. out for good. (Dr. D's orbital space station had gone critical and they both were blown to sub-atomic particles). The PC's sacrifice allowed the rest of the party to stop Dr. D's threat to destroy the world by turning everyone into Metahumans. There was much heroics and some amazing moments, like convincing the New York police officer that he really was hero and was the only one who could save the heroes from dying in re-entry.

 

But the best moment was during the epilogue. There was a memorial service for the Altruist, dozens of heroes were gathered to pay their respects, few words were spoken. Mecha-X, a mutant with some fairly powerful but very subtle, reality altering powers, used his powers to create a holographic American Flag permanently etched into the headstone of the Altruist. (There were tears flowing all around the table.)

 

I'd say the one shot was my greatest moment as a GM.

[OddHat]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Too many to remember, really. The ones that stand out:

 

Paradox Inc

 

First game I ran with SatinKitty, and a campaign that lasted, on and off, about 13 years. Fairly standard Champions world that was mostly played in 4th edition, but also got ported over to GURPS and back again a few times. The Heroes were members of a self-funded Super Hero team with ties to Primus and a contract with the state of Pensylvania, based near the Willow Grove Naval Air Station. If you have to name an age, I'd say Bronze-Iron with high power levels. Started with a GM PC (Harlequin), Satin Kitty's two PCs (Firestorm, Mind Flair), a Gun Bunny Gadgeteer and Vehicle Master (Paladin), and a Captain Marvel tribute (Captain Kaos), but many more PCs came and went. Overall a fun campaign, and many of my favorite gaming memories were built in it. Ended when one of the players passed on.

 

Wild Nightlife Heroes

 

This one started out as a Nightlife campaign (Stellar Games). Nightlife was a fun, goofy world that pre-dated the WoD and used some of the same tropes; a hidden sub-culture of monsters and mages has existed since pre-history, lots of factions waring with one-another, conspiracies, etc. Unlike WoD, Nightlife intentionally played it for action and laughs. Ported this over to Hero around 3rd Ed I think; the Nightlife rules were fun, but I liked Hero more. The Champions elements were added with the idea of a Wild Card virus being developed in WWII, allowing all sides to create Super Soldiers with many of the individual powers of the Kin (monsters and mages) but rarely many of the flaws. Finally, just after the war ends, a Wild Card bomb goes off over Manhattan, killing 10% of the population, turning 1% of the population into Jokers (obvious kin; Ogres, Centaurs, Harpies, Goblins, Were-Wolves, Vampires, Gargoyles, Naga, etc), .1% into "Deuces" (humans with one or two trivial Kin powers or attributes), and .01% into "Aces" (humans with powers similar to and often greater than those of the Kin and few or none of the weaknesses).

 

I enjoyed this one a lot. Tone went back and forth from Splatterpunk to Horror to what might be called Steel (Shiny Iron). It also gave me a chance to play with some of my favorite tropes; ancient conspiracies, over the top violence, weird magic, time travel (the Players learned how their own time travel adventures affected the campaign's "present"), etc. Also gave me a few of my favorite NPCs (Bloodbath, Big Red, The Danger Men, The Redneck, etc). Eventually ended when that group fell apart, though I also ran it a bit in one player games with Satin Kitty.

 

New Circle

 

The campaign I run at conventions, and sometimes at home. Set in the CU Mystic World, I started it as a chance to show off how I thought Mystic heroes and villains could be done in Champions. I've been told it has a 70s comic book feel, which I think is about right. Main Heroes are tributes to the classic Justice League and Teen Titans, re-imagined as magic based heroes. Many threads about this one on the board (The New Circle, The Five, The Defilers, The Young Titans), and Killer Shrike hosts some of the PCs and villains on his web site.

 

Wold Newton Hero

 

My current default campaign. A complete timeline can be found on Susano's site. Probably the richest world background I've done, drawing from all over. "What if every story you've ever read held, at its heart, a seed of truth?" I've had a lot of fun with this one as well. Tends to play out as comedy with dramatic moments most of the time, but the characters are designed with the understanding that, from their point of view, the world they inhabit is real, as are the dangers they face. The adventures right now are set in WWII; Current PCs are American Angel (Satin Kitty), American Eagle (Tribal), Doctor Hyperion (Jhaier), and Rex Dart of the Science Patrol (Winston).

[Doctor Agenda]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

West Guard: Name was swiped from Aaron Allston's strike force. World was mostly 3rd-4th Ed Champions Universe.

 

There were three of us. We each had 2 characters (yes, I, the GM had two "GMPC"s who served as a) A Worf Brick (Used to show how tough the opponents were) and the token scientist so I could esplain things))

 

It was a blast, I had to work around a broken powerful character and a broken not powerful character.

 

But if I had it all to do again we'd have invited a few more players. (Beyond me, my best friend and my brother)

 

Like 15 years ago I ran a South Guard game, 3rd Edition. I don't remember EVERYTHING about it but it featured a brickess named Steel Magnolia, a former mummy called Remnant, and some other PCs. It lasted a couple or three years and they eventually became Earth Guard.

[Doctor Agenda]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

In no particular order:

 

Legacies: All characters had to have a connection to the Defenders of Justice, eg, Optimus II. Set in Old Detroit. Ran a modified Wings of the Valkyrie to great effect.

 

Desperate Times: The Vibe causes .0001% of Earth's population to develop powers at the standard superhero level on Oct 12, 2007. As if that weren't disruptive enough, .001% get them at the low-powered superhero level, .01% at the high-powered hero level, and so on to 10% +0-25 base and +0-25 disads for some ability (if you get zero points, you're latent or the change isn't worth points, like being able to eat a little more without gaining weight). This leads to a very event-packed five months, including the players founding both a paranormal employment angency and a super-school. I just got the M&M Paragons game last weekend and it's got a lot of great ideas for a game like this one.

 

Storm Dragons: The characters all have some connection to mythology and included Magni, Modi (the actual Norse gods), Marduk (a man possessed by the Sumerian god's spirit), and Kali (a shapeshifting robot who wound up betraying us). My memory of the other characters is fuzzier, I think we had a Norn some of the time. Those Olympians were always giving us trouble. It was a 350-point game, back when that was considered high-powered.

[Hermit]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Of Masks and Metahumans A 'standard' superhero campaign full of highly disorganized heroes who sometimes work together (and I say this with affection). Based in New Constantinople.

 

Horizon A Teen Champions game in the same setting as the above.

 

Others later.

[wrestlinggeek]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

In no particular order:

 

Legacy: A 4th Ed. Champions world, with home-brewed elements, where every PC was a second or more generation super. I thought I'd end up with a Teen Titans sort of group, but what I actually got was the grand-daughter of a WWII super, a 3rd-generation super-spy, the son of an otherdimensional villain, and the son of a heroine/villain pairing. Standout moment in the campaign was when Tundra (the brick with minor cold powers) was fighting Ogre in a subway tunnel, and managed to haymaker him up out of the tunnel just before a train would have hit them both. Also the game that saw the invention of a manuever called the Curveball Special, which involved Tundra throwing Taurus (the teleporting martial-artist minotaur) at the villain, and having Taurus teleport at the last second to strike from behind.

 

New Mellenium: Set in the Champions: New Mellenium setting (please don't hate me). PCs were a group of friends gatherred to celebrate the new year when the wave of energy released by The Propritor's death (can't think of what it was called now) hit them, giving everyone in the group super powers. I guess the highlight of that game would be one of the PCs sacrificing himself to stop a nigh-omnipotent being from taking over the world. This was also the campaign where I had to tell most of the players that they could refuse another potential PC entry into the group if they felt their characters wouldn't work with him.

 

The Washington Campaign: Set in a home-brewed world. Pretty standard superhero world with the PCs based in Washington, DC. Had kind of a weird group, including a man's mind trapped in a female robotic body with a female personality program that would occasionally take control, a pretty powerful psionic with slight autism (can't remember how to spell the syndrome), a man who's only ability was to turn himself into a swarm of spiders, and a Faerie. Oh, and the dimensionally-displaced inventor who replaced Spiders.

 

More later.

[OzMike]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Hmmm...

 

The New Peacekeepers: My first attempt at running a game played by my friends. The world and background was rich, but adventures were mostly of the "Lets stop the latest VIPER plot" deal. Quite four colour - light bronze I'd say.

 

Unnamed Campaign / "Mikey's Game": High powered shenanigans of the iron age variety. Lots of nasty killing attacks and angst. Set in the same universe as Peacekeepers, but a few years later.

 

Steel City: A short run of adventures with low powered characters in my first attempt at a street level game wherein the heroes try to investigate why a previously weak street gang called the Jackals had suddenly gained access to military level weapons, started a turf war, and seemed to be distributing and selling a super powered berserk-inducing drug called Frenzy. Bronze/Iron in nature I'd guess.

 

Steel City II: A short run of adventures with low powered characters (some from the previous game) in my second attempt at a street level game wherein the heroes try to track down the source of the super powered berserk-inducing drug called Frenzy. Bronze/Iron in nature.

 

 

Project: Olympus: The old gods have returned and chosen sides in the modern Champions universe. Some decide to work for UNTIL. The heroes (initially 250pts) are recruited by UNTIL and beefed up with 'god energy' by Zeus to fight against evil. Very Bronze/Stormwatch influenced.

 

SHARD: The heroes are recruited into another division of UNTIL (different universe with some echoes of Olympus) to investigate and deal with Strange Happenings - a bit like Hellboy's BRMD but before that time and more superheroic. This one has run on and off over the years and was high powered and a lot of fun.

[Tom]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Of Masks and Metahumans A 'standard' superhero campaign full of highly disorganized heroes who sometimes work together (and I say this with affection). Based in New Constantinople.

 

...

 

You are a true master of understatement... ;D

 

Now to actually contribute something on topic...

 

After a handful of short term runs, my first real campaign was Hawthorne, set in the fictional city of Hawthorne, Virginia. This was very much an 'off and on' game, and spawned three teams which interacted together at various points as players came and went and a spin-off campaign once I stopped really using Hawthorne as my primary setting called Stormfront (which is still sorta around in the back of my and my players' heads).

 

The teams from Hawthorne were:

 

OSC (short for O'Connell Security Consulting), a group of corporate supers who specialized in meta-security...

 

ShadowStrike, a magically oriented commando-styled bunch who regularly crossed swords with the likes of DEMON (sometimes literally) and the Black Enchantress from The Coriolis Effect...

 

The Guardians, a fairly standard super team with a sometimes rotating membership (think Avengers-lite)...

 

The campaign finally folded due to a combination of factors. The release of 5e along with the loss of my hard drive (which had all my game notes/history), plus the birth of my children and my becoming a GM on Hero Central...

 

How does my being a GM on Hero Central factor in? I'll pretend you asked...

 

After playing on HC for a while, once my kids were old enough that I had some time free but still too young to make FtF very practical, I finally got conned into GMing for someone on a game called Solo (GM/player pairs in a shared setting). Over time, I came to GM a handful of others, and then the original 'over-GM' dropped out and I'm still not sure how I ended up taking his place. Finally, it was pointed out to me that I was pretty much the only one driving the stories and that I was GMing for most of the players. Throw in some changes Dan had made to the site since Solo had originally been created, and I changed the game's name to Heroes of Hudson City and began running it as more of a standard campaign...

 

HHC is an intertwined, inter-tangled mess of plots/sub-plots and character development that's been a lot of fun to run. It also incorporates huge amounts of background from my old Hawthorne game. Many of the Hawthorne PCs and NPCs are a part of HHCs stories, and keeping them straight with any attempts to run Hawthorne FtF is more than even I'm willing to attempt...

 

Current teams in HHC include:

 

The Covenant, a group of supers sponsored by OSC...

Mimic (metamorph)

Aquatic (half-Atlantean amphibious demi-brick with additional powers)

Nemesis (desolid martial artist)

Aeroforce (NPC powered armor)

 

The Shadow Guard, the kids' team which isn't really kids anymore...

Ember (pyrokinetic EBer)

Mole (tunneling brick)

Gale (winged wind controller)

Scion (powered armor brick, membership pending)

 

Now that my kids are older (and the kids of another of the couples which play), I've started running a new FtF game set in a more 'standard' CU setting. The Twilight Guard is based in Millennium City, and fills the role of the MC8 after a fashion. Assuming we manage to fit a long-distance player in, we'll even have eight players... (yes, I must be nuts -- especially since two of my players are my kids...)

 

The game consists of:

Vithaar (MA Brick/mentalist-lite, also now a champion of the Norse God who's name he 'borrowed')

Akumu (demi-demonic weaponsmaster, displaced in time)

Impact (bio-magnetic EB/brick)

Striker (magical gadgeteer)

Lotus (mystic mentalist/MA, born in Shamballa)

Hyper (alien appearing speedster, Ben 10 meets Danny Phantom in the form of my 11yr old son )

Stormchild (the elemental spirit of a thunderstorm given mortal form -- as a cat... Can also take a mixed human/feline form and played by my 9yr old daughter )

Blackhawk (telekinetic, membership pending)

[Egyptoid]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

NEPTUNE CITY

IRON AGE of NEPTUNE CITY 2007-08

four color fisticuffs with just a hint of angst thrown in.

heroes: Justin-Tyme, Champion-B, Strong-Arm, Element Master,

Sandor the Mystic, Tejas-Twistero, Blu-Flame and Prof. Challengar.

 

Excelsior !

 

Justice League of Alabama: 1999

the feds pony up the money for a super-team in Birmingham,

not for any great love of protecting the people of

the southern US, but because Alabama was the site

for building Stronghold 2, and they wanted some supers

nearby in case of jailbreaks.

Heroes:Magic Michael, Mind-Wave, Wang-Chiun, Scarlette, Doc Chaos,

Buffalo Rock, Draxene, and High-Voltage

Angst ridden, lots of guns and blood.

 

 

FOURTEEN SUNS: theTrans-Solar Investigations 2004

Space Champions, yet not quite galactic. Super heroes in a "Cowboy-Bebop"

style of Solar System. Silver Age feel, with bubble-helmet space suits

and domed colonies on all 9 planets.

Heroes: Monolith, White-Knite, Triton, Portas, Blue Bat, Gronkar - - - - LINK

 

BETTER LINK

 

Love Children of the Marvel Universe 2005

Campaign started 18 years after a Secret Crisis type mega-event,

when a love-spell gone awry had made everyone on the big

battlefield shuck off their armor and get it on with the nearest

person of the opposite sex. the heroes of the campaign are

meta-human offspring who are being trained to fight crime.

Arbiter, the mystic son of Umar and the Ancient One

Trap-Door, acrobatic son of Spider-man and Black-cat.

Big Brother, mentalist son of Sue Richards and Kingpin.

Ohm, energy pro. son of Captain Marvel (Rambeau) and Living Laser.

Block-house, scrapper son of Wolverine and Spiral.

Death-Archer, gadgeteer son of Hela and Hawkeye.

Pythagoras Jones, speedster son of Hera and Rick Jones....

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Hmmm.

 

Heroes and Monsters (Shadowland)

Intended to be a Freedom Force style group, but with Ultimate Avengers sort of power level and actions. Never really got off the ground, alas.

 

After the End (Hero Central)

Post-Herocalyptic adventuring where heroes are no longer socially acceptable, and are being 'rounded up' and mostly quietly 'disappeared'. No PC knows what's happening to them, and it's one of the mysteries of the game. Home-grown universe, but borrows a lot from Champions, DC, and Marvel. One of the PCs is the son of that universe's 'Superman' and 'Wonder Woman'; others are techno-geeks, demon-bound, and just plain mutants.

 

After the End: Immortals (Hero Central)

Same universe as AtE, but involving the deep forces of the worlds -- those people who are essentially immortal. They are gathering together to decide what must (or should) be done about the world in which they all live, now that 'normal people' have the ability and have proven the will to utterly destroy even such as they ...

[teh bunneh]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Ooh, Oddhat's post reminded me of two of them I forgot. I run these at conventions, so they're not strictly "campaigns," but I've run them for so long there is something of a continuity...

 

Teen Titans Go!

Based off the popular cartoon series. The PCs are members of Titans East and Titans West, combining forces to defend Jump City from a menagerie of nefarious villains!

 

Arabian Knights

This is billed as a Fantasy Hero game, but it's really a superhero game with the trappings of fantasy. The PCs are the defenders of Al Balad, City of 1001 Delights. Each of them is billed as "The World's Greatest X" (as in, "The World's Strongest Man," "The World's Greatest Thief," "The Most Beautiful Woman in the World," and so on). Essentially, low-powered supers battling against a variety of powerful mythical beings.

 

I also resurrected my Dark Champions/Iron Age/Nocturne game to run at cons. Those games tend to get shockingly bloody -- ask Ghost-Angel sometime about the game he played.

[Doc Samson]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

I am currently running (well, we have 2-3 GMs who take turns) a long standing game loosely based on the Exlies. We have been going for about 2 years now. The characters began at 250 pts. and are now nearing 600. The characters are all members of our homebrew group, the Liberty League, but as the stories have taken place in many other realities and times, the team roster has changed many times. The best part of the campign for me was the characters. Some of my players came up with some really creative stuff. Here are a few of my favorites.

 

Geist/ Totenkopf - He was from a reality where the Axis Powers were the good guys and Germany won WWII. He has the ability to channel the spirits of fallen soldiers to augment himself physically or to summon warrior spirits to fight for him. His battlecry was "For the Fatherland!". In his timeline, the group had to stop America from using the Atomic Bomb as it would have destoyed the atmosphere.

 

Dr. Brainwave - A Psychiatrist and Mentalist who's first priority was to protect the mental state of the group during their grueling missions. He was played so well that at times it was hard to tell where his skills left off and his powers began. He was from the "core" timeline and a founding member of the team.

 

Orphan - A ten year old boy with the ability to transform into a giant four-armed monster. Great roleplaying as the perpetually sad child was often more creepy than the monster. He was from a reality where everyone had died leaving him alone with his monster.

 

Stormfront - Also from the core reality and a founding member of the team, the player unfortunately didn't get to make nearly as many games as we would have wanted. Despite having the power to control the weather on a planetary scale, he was our most down to earth member and kept us grounded when things got chaotic (which was often).

 

Thaumaturge - A Hermetic mage and scholar of the Occult. His sage knowledge always managed to help us despite the sci-fi nature of the campaign.

 

Shard - A character with the ability to transform himself into solid crystal. Beacuse his crystalline body resonated at a different frequencies in each dimension, his powers were totally different each time we changed realities.

 

Spring Heeled Jack - A modest inventor and street level vigilante, Jack was a reluctant hero caught up in things that were way out of his league. Depsite this, he always managed to hold his own against opponents with far greater power.

[Timerunner]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

The Defenders/ The New Defenders

Standard Avengers-ish 4th Edition campaign with occasional forays into Dark Champions territory (the game was set in Hudson City so the Batman-ish character tended to have solo adventures that were more Dark Champions in nature). Ran for 12 years up until last October.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

One of my favorite past campaigns incorporated elements from Classic Enemies, San Angelo: City of Heroes, and the original Champions Universe to create the PCs' main antagonists. Those of you familiar with those books will likely recognize the names and groups I used:

 

Randal MacFadden was one of the most powerful and least detrimentally affected of the mutates resulting from the military's Project: Sunburst, gaining great light-manipulating powers. MacFadden came to see himself as being "touched by the sun," not only attaining vast powers, but also receiving a vision of himself reshaping society to harmonize with the natural world.

 

After forcing the general in charge of the project to erase all records of MacFadden's participation, and to create a new identity for him, Randal killed the general. He then joined major technology corporation Pharos Industries in his new guise of young hotshot executive Stephen Bow, quickly rising up the ranks to ultimately become CEO of the company.

 

At the same time, Randal adopted another identity and another career: that of Adam, founder of the new-age cult The Light of Truth Ministry. The cultists revered the Sun as the symbol and source of life energy, but Adam's inner circle was aware of his powers and considered him an avatar of the Sun itself. Adam recruited from these fanatically loyal followers for agents of his super-terrorist group, Solar Mass, equiped with technology pirated from Pharos Industries, and which he led under yet another identity: the supervillain Photon. As Photon he also recruited or freed other mutates from Project: Sunburst to supplement Solar Mass's muscle. (I particularly liked the way the various sun-light motifs played off each other, giving this villain a strong theme.)

 

The various branches of Photon's organization were able to support each other. Solar Mass attacked rivals of Pharos Industries or those who got too close to the truth about Light of Truth, and stole funds to finance secret projects by Pharos. The Light of Truth demonstrated against and harassed heroes who attacked Pharos or Solar Mass, and their donations supported the other two. Pharos Industries lawyers protected Light of Truth cultists or Solar Mass operatives.

 

Photon's background as designed here had plenty of plot hooks to draw in the PCs: they came into direct conflict with Sunburst and Solar Mass; investigated questionable activities by Pharos Industries; a DNPC was drawn into the Light of Truth Ministry and had to be "deprogrammed"; the PCs learned about the tampering with Project: Sunburst records and tried to track down Randal MacFadden. The PCs ran up against each of these branches of Photon's organization separately, only gradually coming to suspect that they were connected. I was quite proud that I'd been able to keep them from recognizing the connecting clues for so long; the payoff when the heroes finally realized who was behind so many of their problems was priceless, and the final confrontation with Photon seemed to be very satisfying to them.

[Ghost Archer]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

The Wild Hunt:

Age: Bronze

Begun originally at a hobby shop called the White Heron, the Wild Hunt has existed for 26 years now. The first five years the roster changed from weekend to weekend as people wanted to play Champions at the Heron. At that time there may have been as many as fifty active members. Now it has dwindled to a few, a not very active few.

 

The Seattle Hunt:

Age: Bronze

A splinter of the Wild Hunt that was a result of a chasm, a gulf, okay, it was a war, between members of the team. It was not an in-character problem but a player problem. I came to love Seattle Hunt nearly as much as the original Hunt.

 

The Lothorien Academy:

Age: Bronze

Actually a short-lived teen Champions game centered on a school set up by Ghost Archer of the Wild Hunt. Again player problems broke things and lead to the following.

 

The Legacy

Age: Bronze

When the Lothlorien Academy folded, two members moved south to San Diego and became involved with a retired Golden Aged hero. Again a teen game but with a school set up by the government.

 

Dark Nights

Age: Iron

The only Dark Champions game I’ve set up. A diverse group brought together by a common enemy.

 

Isla del Oro

Age: Iron

When a game I was playing folded, one of the players agreed to allow me to use my character Blurr in a new campaign, thus bringing two experienced superhero characters into a world where super powers were just emerging. I know the idea was campaigns that I have actually run, not played but in this case the game came to be a cooperative between two of us that proved very successful.

[concord]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

The Covenant

Age: Silver/Bronze

World spanning supernatural heroes on a galactic power level... 15-20 DC attacks with 40 - 60 defenses... remember a session where Titan did a 28d6 PRE attack, everyone including his teammates just stopped and gawked... Ran weekly for about 2 years.

 

Knights of Justice - Sydney, Australia

Age: Silver/Bronze

Chose Sydney because it was not New York City and I was obsessed with Australia at the time... Campaign date was late 90s and early 2000s... Several of the NPC heroes in the group were family and a couple of PCs married into the family... Michael Knight and the Foundation for Law And Government sponsored the group... Yes, all of their vehicles talked... Ran weekly for about 4.5 years.

 

Streets - New York City

Age: Rusty Iron

An experiment with the dark side... a truly dark game where the "good" guys had a higher body count than the "bad" guys... the "healer" character died in a burst of automatic gunfire two sessions into the campaign... a PC watched his mother die as the bad guy shot through her to get to him... a neighborhood hero saved the neighborhood by wiping out the criminals and taking over their racket so that no other criminals would come in to fill the void... Ran weekly for about 6 months.

 

Crusaders - New York City

Age: Silver/Bronze

A return to my comfort zone... the first of what would go on to become a standard theme when starting a new campaign, the PCs are the new guys taking the place of an established group... Ran weekly for about 13 months.

 

Protectors - San Francisco

Age: Silver/Bronze

The first San Francisco campaign... a new group of players only one holdover from the previous four campaigns... did not last too long, only a few months...

 

Took a while off from gaming, four years or so. Then ran a Traveller campaign for about a year...

 

Wardens Chronicles - San Francisco

Age: Silver/Bronze

Current campaign... took some of the elements from the Crusaders campaign along with several other GMs' campaigns that had shared the same world and forged the basis for the Foundation Chronicles world... this campaign has run off and on for the last 11 years... there have been 4 iterations of the Wardens during that time and a short lived off-shoot campaign...

[Arkham]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

I forgot one...

 

Teen Champions

Ran between the first and second West Coast Supers game, overlaping some of the first one. It only ran for around 4 to 6 months bi-weekly.

The roster was Whatever, captain of the cheerleading squad with the power to shapeshift into (almost) anything. She was the daughter of two supervillains, though secretly her father was a shapeshifting supervillain who posed as the father she knew to get with her mother... Highbrow, the freshman class president, rich kid mentalist and subject of genetic engineering by FATE to cure his 'autism'. Tempus Franjit was the weirdo who could control time itself. There was Mercury, the metal-head loser orphan alien placed into foster care by the US government, he had a panalopy of powers similar to Martian Manhunter, but different. Crescendo was the bookish choir/artsy girl with sonic powers, also the daughter of a Siren and the police chief. And there was Acidic, the poor kid who excreted acid through his skin. The football player and desolid character, Midnight Mystery, dropped out of the game after the first session due to life issues.

[GoldenAge]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

I've run a few games in my time...

 

The 30 Gables

Way back in the late 80s I started a game based in and around the St. Louis metropolitan area. It started out as a simple game of random heroes made by close friends determined to have some fun with superheroes. However, the players and their characters were so fantastic that it grew into the standard against which I would measure all following Champions games.

 

Characters such as Shane, Djinn, Enigma, Spell Binder, Dark Force and Quirk reached legendary status and can still be found in my current game.

 

The strange name of the team (The 30 Gables) was derived from the fantastical home of Spell Binder, which our heroes used as their HQ. The 30 Gables was more than a house; it was a living entity that rested squarely on a dimensional nexus like a patch on a pipe about to burst. Below the house existed a series of mysterious catacombs and caverns, each of which could or did lead to some new and unusual dimension. Its proximity to the dimensional forces below twisted and reshaped the home on a continual basis. Entire portions of the manor Spell Binder had inherited from this dimension's former and now missing Sorcerer Supreme had been known to completely disappear from this reality (such as the infamous North Wing). The 30 Gables (the house) is also a fixture that has survived (if only in the far background) in every game I've ever run.

 

The Paladin Project

The next step in my GMing machinations led St. Louis into the near future; a future of darkness and destruction following the 3rd World War. There the heroes Crusade, Halo, Insight, 7th Sign, Citadel, Incense, Beacon as well as Deadbeat, the Cricket, Ghostdancer, Clouded Leopard, Override and Hacker (yah, it was a large table) battled as ordained agents of the Catholic Church against the incredible tide of corporate growth and greed, often secretly acknowledging that the very organization for which they worked was the most corrupt of all. This game lasted for years and spun off several other games...

 

A 20

During the dark global war of terrorism (WWIII - NOTE: I ran this scenario back in the early 90's... who knew?) the US and other allied nations found that conventional warfare was impossible against small pockets of terror and destruction, especially when the evil afoot unveiled an increasing number of artificially enhanced beings bent on their prescribed reign of horror. In little time the allies began their own projects to create paranormal individuals, people who could single-handedly take the power of a tank or jet fighter into the very nests that spread poison across the land. They had many names. In Great Brittan they were called P.H.A.N.T.O.Ms and in the United States they were called A.T.O.M. Squads.

 

Each country was given a Greek designation and within the US each state referred to by order of inclusion to the union. Thus it was that the courageous group of heroes who held our Southern most borders safe from terrorist incursion: designates - Alpha 20 upheld the legends of the Texas Rangers that proceeded them and began an unprecedented mission as the United States first US Martial paranormal team.

 

Together Phenom, Impulse, Bludgeon and Psyber responded to those national threats that only ones as skilled and powerful as they could quell.

 

The Fringe

While the Paladin Project worked diligently to protect St. Louis proper there existed beneath their gaze a contingent of the city unaccepted by its populace, a group that lived in the sewers and at the edge of existence at the Fringe of society. There a whole different evil existed and it fell upon an unusual mix of societal outcasts and misshapen mutants to aid the downtrodden, to keep the dregs of society from falling prey to the killers and undead that scoured the edges looking for their next meal.

 

Epic City

Resplendent with a mixture of historical Victorian charm and the advantages of technology Epic City dominates the East Coast and is considered the keystone of the United Societies of America. From its ascendant upper class soaring effortlessly along the aerial byways on the resplendent airships of Peregrine Transit in route to the Fifth Pier Galleria to the hard-nosed dockworkers in the Port District Epic City is filled with intrigue and adventure.

 

This is my current game!

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

Greetings HEROdom, TheQuestionMan's Campaigns are listed here. No earlier Campaign survived contact with the future.

 

 

Retired Campaigns:

 

The Champions of Vancouver Campaign

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=32740

 

The NEW Champions of Vancouver Campaign

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57725

 

 

Cheers

 

 

QM

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

My most recent game was 'The New Fabulous Five'.

 

I gave the old Fab Five a decommissioned base in the lake off of what used to be Detroit (Lake St. Claire, is it?), with an AI that didn't get properly shut down and has gone a little weird over the years. When The Engineer tried to create a space elevator in Afghanistan, screwing up worldwide communications, he got in touch with Pensativa (a mentalist who had been injured in the Battle of Detroit) and basically blackmailed her into gathering up some heroes to go stop her. She wound up finding Sunbow (an Egyptian Demigod who can summon a bow of flame and shoot solar arrows), Hex (who wears what amounts to a darkness version of a Green Lantern ring), and War Wolf (a heavily-armed robot). The team picked up Supersonic (a speedster) after a few adventures. I ran Champions Battleground with them, and I've kind of been cajoled into bringing the game back ... this week.

[DreadDomain]

Re: Champions games you've run

 

We played quite a bit of Champions but only 5 campaigns as 3 of them were fairly long runs.

 

Assault

Iron Age

Our first attempt at Champions many years ago. The GM and 4 out of the 6 players were not very well versed with super-heroes. With poor character designs and some illegal builds, the group was completely unbalanced. As an example, one of the character was so slow (SPD and Movement just too ordionary compared to others) that for the whole campaign, he reached combat only once before it ended, had only the opportunity to land a blow... and missed. All of it lead to a fairly short stint and less than satisfying campaign.

Characters : Holocaust, Hardstone, Nemesis, Artemis, Living Steel, V-Tech, Rayden

 

Golden Age

Golden Age

Set in New-York in the DC Universe in 1939, the campaign followed the adventures of 5 low to medium powered supers. All characters were very well designed and respected the spirit of the golden age era. The players were very focused on roleplaying and interractions between them and the GM totally digged the era. It ran for many years and we still have very fond memory of it.

Characters : J.W.Steel, Captain Hero, Supersonic (deceased), Green Ranger (deceased), Dr Absolom/The Mist, Jonny Hercules, Mud Boy,

 

Star Knights

Iron Age

Set in Star City in the present day DC Universe. The Star Knights were a group of very powerful meta-human battling prime-time DC Universe villains. The tone was somewhat dark and the characters had interesting nuances. Although not as succesful as the Golden Age campaign, it also ran for years and we had a great time.

Characters : Vindicator, Freedom (deceased), Wonderful Wanda (deceased), SilverEdge, Phoenix, Kitana, Hellcat, Lady Rose, Living Steel (a different character than in the first campaign)

 

Dark Champions : Gotham

Dark Champions

Set in an Elseworld Gotham where Batman doesn't exist. Basically taking all the Batman gallery and making our own. This campaign was built for a single multi-session scenario.

Characters : Myster Fear, Night Dragon and for the love of God I can't recall the name of the third member

 

Meta-Quatre (Meta-4)

Set in present day Montréal with 4 mid to high powered heroes. Character design was excellent, backstory of every one of them very rich and interactions between players very intense. The characters were full of nuances and of them even turned villain mid campaign. Our best Champions characters to date. Many years of great fun and a campaign that was at least as satisfying as the Golden Age one.

Characters : Masque X, Danger Boy (turned villain), Dynamo, Rocketeer (deceased), Éminence Grise