Putting something together

[DJ Blackrock]

First off, Hello all, this is my first post upon finding this site. I've been a HERO fan for quite a while, and Champions was the first RPG I ever played (about 12 years ago now)

 

Anyways, I'm putting together a twice monthly game for myself and a few friends. Basically, I'm using a setting I'd made a few years ago, in a place called Center City. It's more or less Millenium City, just not on the ruins of Detroit and all that. It's a wonderfully generic city that is placed on a river, and has the full range of seasons, etc.

 

The last game I ran in this setting kind of fell apart. Playing heroes got old for the group, and the Serenity Role Playing Game had just come out, so we ended up stopping the game rather abruptly. I want to reboot the setting, and I was figuring setting it in the not too distant future, like, say, 2025.

 

Center City, once a mecca of meta-human activity for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that the city sits smack dab on top of a convergence of Ley Lines, had gone cold. 25 years ago, something happened, and all meta-human activity disappeared. Super science no longer worked without the meta-human geniuses to concieve of it. Those who could once work magic found it to be impossible. All the heroes and villains that populated the city just vanished overnight.

 

Now, 25 years later, 6 young people find that they are the first to exhibit powers in a quarter of a century. They are:

Frostbite - and Ice/Cold manipulator. Petty thief and cat burglar, on probation.

The Twins - Identical boy/girl twins with limited psychic powers, who also have access to a 2 story tall mecha.

Fox - A teleporting anthropomorphic fox-man. Expert swordsman.

(The Healer) - a heal/buff/debuff master (no name yet)

as well as two more characters that I don't have details for yet.

 

(any of my players who read after this, do so at your own peril!)

I plan for these characters, who find it difficult to access their powers initially, to discover that the heroes and villains of Center City were trapped in a pocket dimension somehow, held in stasis for 25 years.

 

My big question is, I need a macguffin for the players to destroy, or futz with, or whatever that will deactivate/short out/glitch/whatever and release not only the heroes and villains, but also reactivate the ley lines, bringing power and magic back to the world, starting in Center City.

 

What kind of Macguffin would you use? Mystical? Technologic? Alien Tech? I can't really decide.

 

Hope I didn't ramble too much.

[CoreBrute]

Re: Putting something together

 

This seems far too advanced to be science, even super science, so I would suggest magic.

 

However if you have a master super villain in mind from a previous setting, In the style of Dr Doom, then say he built the device which did this, but it also took a toll on him mentally.

 

He needs the heroes to destroy the device he can barely understand, so he can regain his strength. And once he has his powers, eliminating the heroes will be child's play...

 

You could lead the heroes to the machine with what looks like simple robberies, but are actually highly paid mercenaries funded by the master villain with money from the times he said, "Unless the world hands over $100million dollars, I will blow up the planet" etc. They lead the heroes to the device and get them to destroy it.

 

Who knows? The merceneries might even get super powers from the whole thing...

[bubba smith]

Re: Putting something together

 

First off, Hello all, this is my first post upon finding this site. I've been a HERO fan for quite a while, and Champions was the first RPG I ever played (about 12 years ago now)

 

Anyways, I'm putting together a twice monthly game for myself and a few friends. Basically, I'm using a setting I'd made a few years ago, in a place called Center City. It's more or less Millenium City, just not on the ruins of Detroit and all that. It's a wonderfully generic city that is placed on a river, and has the full range of seasons, etc.

 

The last game I ran in this setting kind of fell apart. Playing heroes got old for the group, and the Serenity Role Playing Game had just come out, so we ended up stopping the game rather abruptly. I want to reboot the setting, and I was figuring setting it in the not too distant future, like, say, 2025.

 

Center City, once a mecca of meta-human activity for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that the city sits smack dab on top of a convergence of Ley Lines, had gone cold. 25 years ago, something happened, and all meta-human activity disappeared. Super science no longer worked without the meta-human geniuses to concieve of it. Those who could once work magic found it to be impossible. All the heroes and villains that populated the city just vanished overnight.

 

Now, 25 years later, 6 young people find that they are the first to exhibit powers in a quarter of a century. They are:

Frostbite - and Ice/Cold manipulator. Petty thief and cat burglar, on probation.

The Twins - Identical boy/girl twins with limited psychic powers, who also have access to a 2 story tall mecha.

Fox - A teleporting anthropomorphic fox-man. Expert swordsman.

(The Healer) - a heal/buff/debuff master (no name yet)

as well as two more characters that I don't have details for yet.

 

(any of my players who read after this, do so at your own peril!)

I plan for these characters, who find it difficult to access their powers initially, to discover that the heroes and villains of Center City were trapped in a pocket dimension somehow, held in stasis for 25 years.

 

My big question is, I need a macguffin for the players to destroy, or futz with, or whatever that will deactivate/short out/glitch/whatever and release not only the heroes and villains, but also reactivate the ley lines, bringing power and magic back to the world, starting in Center City.

 

What kind of Macguffin would you use? Mystical? Technologic? Alien Tech? I can't really decide.

 

Hope I didn't ramble too much.

i'd go for mystical myself

[Psylint]

Re: Putting something together

 

Here's what I'd try off the top of my head:

 

Kernunnos Celitc God of Nature, the Hunt, and the Dead.

 

"Ever wonder why the ancient Gods no longer walk the earth as they once did when Man was just a pup? I can see that you haven't, but ne'er mind that now. Center City used to be the epicenter of all things strange and wondrous, fantastical creatures and beings, science and technology beyond all ken, seers and magicians the likes of which the world had not seen since Merlin."

 

The old beggar hacked out a cackle, sputtering bloody sputem into a "well used" rag. Smiling with his incongrous perfect smile, he eyes Frost Bite. "Go on, be doubting Hakim, there's no cure for the willfully ignorant. But think on it a moment, why is an otherwise upstanding second story lad such as yourself bothering Hakim the Storyteller? Hmmm... Hmmm..."

 

Coughing again into his rag, Hakim continues in a painfully scratched voice, "Because you seek answers, where no one else even asks questions? You're not going to find the long lost heroes, villains, freaks, and monsters in some science book. None of these painted ladies with well turned cards and dusty globes can peer behind the Veil and divine it for you. Though no doubt they say they will."

 

"You pumped every thief, beggar, and whore for whatever they might've seen or heard, but you didn't even get a viable rumor. You're flat out of options and so you come down to the Hollows, and scrounge up old Hakim." Clouds pass over obscuring the moon, plunging the dank alley into darkness and turning Hakim's mischievous grin, into a Cheshire smile.

 

"Well pays me my money and I'll tell you a story. A story of how the ancient Gods broke free from behind the Veil and how the freaks from this world became lost in the next."

 

tl:dr

The ancient God of the hunt, Kernunnos, with a cabal of other ancient gods, pierced the Veil between the Worlds. Giving him and his Hounds, 7 days in this world. Hoping to acquire more power to make a permanent bridge between this world and the Next, he kidnapped all the supers from Center City. There he and the other ancient gods have put many of them to work, building the bridge.

 

The PC's have powers now, because the bridge is nearing completion and trace amounts of the power from the Next World is bleeding through.

 

The MacGuffin, can be the bridge, or the ancient gods.

 

Peace

[Utech]

Re: Putting something together

 

Why not go for all three?

 

An alien crash-landed on Earth, made its way to Center City, and created a device that transferred all of the Ley Line power into a storage device. The idea was to store enough power for the alien to reactivate its space craft and begin the return journey home. The alien activated the device and it began to work. Center City's superpowered beings immediately sensed that something was wrong and converged on the device. The alien managed to snag each one of them in a stasis field. Unfortunately for the alien, the last superbeing (your choice) pulled the alien into the stasis field as well!

 

The device has been absorbing energy for the past 25 years and can absorb no more. It is leaking Ley Line power -- enough to support 6 PCs -- and is on the verge of overloading. Overloading would be bad: goodbye Center City.

 

Your PCs can be attracted to the power storage device and investigate it. The alien tech of the thing is probably beyond their comprehension -- essentially magic. But that doesn't mean they couldn't fiddle with it...

 

Your PCs will also have to find the stasis field / pocket dimension generator. Perhaps it is linked to the power storage device in such a way that when the PCs fiddle with the power storage device, the stasis field generator becomes agitated. The stasis field generator is also tech beyond PC ken, but it's simpler to use.

 

From there you might have the PCs...

...enter the stasis field to "activate" the beings within.

...destroy the stasis field generator.

...turn off the stasis field generator.

...do something else.

 

What will become of the alien? Well, that's another story line for you to play around with. Or, if you don't want the alien, simply rule that it died.

[DJ Blackrock]

Re: Putting something together

 

Utech, I like that one, I'm probably going to use aspects of that later on, but Psylint? :applause: I only wish I'd thought of that myself. I've even figured out what this end of the bridge will look like, and who the guardian will be, etc.

 

I really wish I'd thought of that, but, hey, I guess that's one of the reasons I come here

[Lucius]

Re: Putting something together

 

 

 

 

What kind of Macguffin would you use? Mystical? Technologic? Alien Tech? I can't really decide.

 

Hope I didn't ramble too much.

 

When Kirk asked the Guardian of Forever "Are you a being? Or a computer?"

 

He/she/it/they answered "Both. And neither."

 

Have it be something that transcends the categories you describe, something that cannot be explained in terms of such limited concepts as magic or science.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Like the palindromedary

[Utech]

Re: Putting something together

 

Utech' date=' I like that one, I'm probably going to use aspects of that later on[/quote']

 

By all means.

[Legatus]

Re: Putting something together

 

@ psylint: I loved your reply. Well written, wonderful idea!

 

With the origin of the powers being ley lines, the cause for the missing metahumans should also be mystical. IMHO .

[Pól Ruadh]

Re: Putting something together

 

Actually, the idea of ley lines puts me in mind of 'Feng Shui', the Action RPG from Atlas Games.

In 'Feng Shui', the backstory centres around a secret war between various factions of time-travellers. Basically, if you travel back to, say 1870, and can seize enough power points across the world, you can reshape history from that point on, with the result that, for those in the present day and future junctures, the world changes and it's as though it's always been this way.

In 'FS', characters who have travelled in time are immune to the effects, and can remember how the universe was before the shift.

 

So the cause could be something where time or the structure of the universe has been altered in the past, changing the present.

Obviously, in your version, people can still remember the way it used to be, but you might have your remaining superhumans somehow protected in the same was that time-travellers in FS are.

Maybe they all had a run-in with the same hatted and coated mystery man, a meeting which seemed, at first, to be innocuous, but later, is discovered to be anything but.