Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

[Desert]

So, taking a comic event and bringing it into the game. Your character is getting older, and time is taking it's toll. They are starting to move slower and have a hard time fighting. It's getting to the point where he or she has to face the truth that they are getting too old to continue to fight crime and battle evil as they do. Soon they are going to either have to retire, or they are going to get killed.

 

So, the time for the hero is coming to an end, but they name, and it's legacy needs to live on. While the person may be getting old, the hero needs to live on.

 

So, who will your character pick to take on the name and it's legacy? Who will pick up the fight for your hero and take his or her place as the symbol and what it represents?

 

Try thinking about it from where your character currently is or going in his or her life. They aren't all going to have children after all. This could be altered some for immortal characters. They may not be getting old physically, but they do have more years of experience and may be feeling the need to apply their skills elsewhere.

 

So. Who will take up your Champion's Legacy?

[fbdaury]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Whoever pays the most money when I sell my stuff on eBay... just kidding.

 

Honestly though, in most cases it is not the hero who chooses to have a legacy live on- its normally a matter of another, young, hero with either similar powers or mindset choosing to "honor" their inspiration by taking up their name or likeness. There is then always the matter of trying to clear it with that person as well, to avoid having them come after you to "take back their name".

 

I understand what you're asking but it just seems to me that it would rarely be a case of a hero choosing their replacement so much as allowing a young hero to take on their name... but YMMV.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Stick has it easy: he's already founded a school for martial artists. His top students will be his legacy, no doubt one will take up the bamboo staff...

 

Shadow Hawk's not likely to have a legacy. Genetically engineered, he's not much for human contact.

 

Thunder Child's just a kid. Needs more development time before he even thinks about it. And a grown up name.

[Cygnia]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Being immortal, part of Prospero's mindset is that every twenty years or so he changes both his secret & super IDs and moves on to a new area where new heroes are getting established so he can help mentor the next generation.

[Shadow Hawk]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Being immortal' date=' part of Prospero's mindset is that every twenty years or so he changes both his secret & super IDs and moves on to a new area where new heroes are getting established so he can help mentor the next generation.[/quote']

 

So, he's his own legacy? I've got a NPC like that...

[Cygnia]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

So' date=' he's his own legacy? I've got a NPC like that...[/quote']

 

Pretty much, yeah. Mind you, he's also got Psych Lims of fearing to get too close to people up the wazoo...

[Zed-F]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Soulbarb has powers that stem primarily from being soulbound to a powerful demon. She isn't going to be thinking about legacies at all until she can throw off that particular set of shackles. Had she never been soulbound in the first place she would have become a powerful mage, and still might someday once the demon has been dealt with; if that comes to pass she might start thinking about legacies at that time.

 

Sylph has a powerset that amounts to being blessed and chosen by a particular Greek god (Dionysius.) She can't really train people in that, but with more experience under her belt I could see her becoming a mentor for someone who had been similarly empowered and needed help dealing with the changes that result therefrom. Especially if their powers result in a lot of weirdness suddenly cropping up and disrupting their lives. (Her advice -- go with the flow, do what seems right, and don't worry about making mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable but as long as you are trying your best and are morally centered, things will work out in the long run.)

 

For the moment, though, she's too new and still too uncertain of herself to really consider herself a potential role model.

[Desert]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Whoever pays the most money when I sell my stuff on eBay... just kidding.

 

 

 

Honestly though, in most cases it is not the hero who chooses to have a legacy live on- its normally a matter of another, young, hero with either similar powers or mindset choosing to "honor" their inspiration by taking up their name or likeness. There is then always the matter of trying to clear it with that person as well, to avoid having them come after you to "take back their name".

 

 

I understand what you're asking but it just seems to me that it would rarely be a case of a hero choosing their replacement so much as allowing a young hero to take on their name... but YMMV.

 

 

From my experience, it is rare for a hero to pass on a legacy, but that's more because the heroes do not retire or die. They are too popular are such.

 

While it is true that some times the character has no say in the matter, because the legacy is passed on by someone else, or someone takes it upon themselves, there are cases where the hero chose a friend or someone they trust to take over, and one or two have actually passed it on in family, though not directly, like a nephew, niece, or cousin.

 

Besides, as you are the players, you actually get to have more of a say in the choice in the actual characters. A player could decide to start training a replacement, who will be their next character if something happens to the original.

[McCoy]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Snow Leopard is effectively a legacy, her father and grandfather had simular powers, as do several cousins in her dysfunctional family. No reason to believe her children won't as well. Only problem is picking out a father. She expects her natural live expectancy to be at least 200 years, and will not consider anyone hundr a hundred as her baby's daddy.

 

Dolphin still does not consider himself a superhero, and is unworried about this legacy. However, if someone with a passion for marine biology who can breath underwater arrives, he would be willing to mentor a student.

 

Millennium has always aspired to inspire others to search for their hero within, he would be willing to mentor any begining hero who asked. However, to become the living incarnation of the Hero With a Thousand Faces requires a quest of self-discovery. His sucessor will have to figure it out for himself, same as he did.

 

Cheeta and Iron Will both consider their powers, if not a curse, at least a mixed blessing. Their advice for aspiring heros would be "Don't!"

 

Guess I've played HipHop enough that I can start including him in these scenarios. He has not yet fully done the seperation from his parents to be come a full adult and from his checkered past to become a full hero. He has not yet considered taking on a sidekick.

[bubba smith]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

stick has it easy: He's already founded a school for martial artists. His top students will be his legacy, no doubt one will take up the bamboo staff...

 

.

tuff man would want his nephew to be his succesor

[teh bunneh]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Guess I've played HipHop enough that I can start including him in these scenarios. He has not yet fully done the seperation from his parents to be come a full adult and from his checkered past to become a full hero. He has not yet considered taking on a sidekick.

 

All the characters from the X-Men: TNG, Avengers: TNG, Thunderbolts: TNG, and West Coast Avengers: TNG games are legacy heroes already.

[Vann the Red]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Thump would have no idea why someone would want to pick up his mantle, let alone moniker.

 

Scion is already a legacy and the answer is simple: his son (y'know, after he finishes college, gets married, and has a family).

 

Challenger deals with this issue constantly as a former sidekick and current 50-something.

[Mendou]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

One character (or, more precisely, group of characters) I created for one game was the Sentinel. Originally a hero in World War II, he first chose his sidekick to replace him in the 1950s. When said sidekick got too old, he picked a young black man from 1960s Georgia to replace him. The third Sentinel chose a female law-school student in the early 1980s, who then chose the grandson of the first Sentinel in the mid 1990s. Of course, that overlooks the extradimensional entity who endowed the first one (and all subsequent ones) with near-superhuman abilities, who also formed a mind link with each successive Sentinel as the old one retired. Thus, you've got five minds from three generations (roughly speaking), all working together on the same problem. It's a good way to guarantee that one's successor maintains the original's ideals

[bubba smith]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

well put

[hfergus]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Volt - Already in his sixties, and got his powers in his sixties. Thinking about this already. No one in sight. If a hero was like him in attitude primarily, and secondarily similar powers, he'd pass on the name. Would not bother him too much if it did not happen. He'd be very pleased if it did however.

 

Olorin - Uh- that's the name he was born with. He's 747 years old and unaging. Back in his homeworld he started a mage school. Has had many apprentices. When he outlasts his compatriots, he either finds others or retreats into research- for a while. He always starts hero stuff eventually and normally works with others. His age and experience tends to make him a leader or at least an advisor. He almost always leaves heroes in his wake. I guess he's been doing this for a while. No one definite in mind, but he thinks one will show up eventually.

 

Black Tiger - Isn't thinking about it. If, and I stress if, he found a likely student he'd pass everything on. Probably including his distrust of authorities. Not very likely, but he'd love it.

 

Futurian "Umm... You know I'm from the future? I could not pass this on unless I had a child, and probably not even then. And there be no children if I can help it. Could really mess up the timeline. If someone had similar powers and I like them, yeah sure if I went home or got too old. God, that's depressing. Unless I got old Like Olorin, in which case I would not need to retire."

 

Leadman - His power is in an amulet. He could and would pass it on if the person was right. He has 2 candidates that show promise, but need to get older. One is a 2nd cousin. One is the kid next door. Right now he's leaning to the kid next door as he has a bit more of the same mindset as Leadman.

[Clonus]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

The only people who can really pick a successor are the training and gadget heroes. And I don't have those kind of heroes.

[Tom]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Vagabond is already a legacy himself, and still not really comfortable with the idea of being a hero -- let alone passing on the mantle some day. He's rather young yet to be worrying about it (He's part of teh bunneh's West Coast Avengers: TNG game)...

 

JT is 15. And the son of a super. The closest he's come to worrying about 'the next generation' as it applies to him is a brief glance of a possible future when he's an adult and a young super is trying to convince him to talk to her parents about letting her skip the whole 'super school' thing and start fighting villains for real...

 

Speedzone has already had an inadvertent trip to the future and has met his daughter who has clearly inherited his powerset, and taken a name that is a combination of his and her mother's. He's also had a teenager try to be his sidekick -- complete with complimentary costume and name. He's also discovered his family has at least one other 'hero' in the 'tree. His grandmother was an unwilling super for the Nazis during WWII...

 

Vector.. well, he's never really considered himself as having a legacy to pass down in the first place. He's a thief, well, 'retired' thief and he hadn't planned on taking up the whole 'ID' thing again anyhow -- let alone trying to act like a hero. It's nothing he'd ever even thought to consider, and isn't likely to in the short term...

 

Kodiak.. Kodiak is the child of two engineered metas (any further back on his family tree, and you're naming lab equipment). His sister is a meta. He has a son who almost certainly will be a meta, and an adopted daughter who already has her own costumed ID. Courtesy of a time travel scenario (hmmm, there seem to have been a lot of those going on -- I blame Hermit, even if I was the GM in this particular one), he already knows his sister's daughter will be a meta. He might even be immortal, or at least it was hinted at during one adventure. He doesn't know of the other three children in his future (yet -- well, two of the three), but it just isn't in his mindset to consider passing on anything in the way of a 'traditional' legacy...

[Nagisawa Takumi]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

The only people who can really pick a successor are the training and gadget heroes. And I don't have those kind of heroes.

Yeah, pretty much. The closest I got is a Power Armour Pilot, which is designed specifically for his frame.

[SKJAM!]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Years ago, I wrote up a Japanese hero named Warai Kamen "Laughing Mask" who was actually four people over the course of time.

 

#1 was a WWII vet with ninja training and brain damage that prevented him from speaking coherently, and gave him a really disturbing laugh. Killed when his arch-enemy created and blew up an entire secret base just for that purpose.

 

#2 was a very minor superhero with Desolid powers who had no connection with the original, but reinvented himself by copying the first one's costume and passing as Warai Kamen's ghost. Eventually someone managed to get lucky and shoot him when solid.

 

#3 was the second one's gadget supplier, who took up the mantle when his friend died, to disguise that fact and protect #2's family. I forget how he died.

 

#4 was a champion martial artist whose aunt had the first Warai Kamen's mask for reasons she never explained, and gave it to him when he expressed an interest in fighting crime. He eventually was swallowed by the campaign equivalent of Godzilla.

 

After that, no one wanted to continue the legacy.

[Matt the Bruins]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

I don't think any of my characters are interested in passing their code name and heroic legacy down to a new generation.

 

Super Model was snarkily named by the press, so it's not like she's particularly fond of being called that herself, let alone interested in saddling someone else with the code name.

 

Earth Girl is an avatar of Mother Nature, and when her season is done a new person will be chosen by that divinity to carry on in her place. She won't have any say in the matter.

 

Kurzhaan the Conqueror is immortal and millenia old, so not making retirement plans anytime soon. And his legacy is hundreds (or possibly thousands) of people cursed with lycanthropy in the present day, so he's mostly concerned with not getting killed by a lucky "descendant" who's desperate to find a cure.

[Karma]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Fore-eyes: Whoever he has seen doing so (precogs! Gotta love'm).

 

Hardball: Has already chosen his successor, she fights beside him as his partner. He knows deep down that he won't retire, his enemies will finally catch up with him. Once that happens Pitcher will be there to take up the fight.

 

Karma: "Whoever it is need my keen fashion sense, my amazing looks, my subjective morality, my... Oh lets face it there's only ever gonna be one me." Later: "That's right dear, now when the tumbler is ... (alarm sounds) ... Time to go, meet grandma back at the hideout."

(Really Karma wouldn't trust anyone to take up her mantle, but if there was going to be someone it would have to be family.)

 

John Doe: First, he'd have trouble believing that anyone would want to follow in his footsteps. Once he got over that shock he'd have to make sure that the person was of the highest moral character and would not, ever, abuse their powers. This would be especially important if they had his power-set. He'd be more likely to take on a prodigy who had suffered horribly and yet kept their moral compass (too many people seem to 'go bad' when they are truly hurt, in his estimation).

 

Tinker-Belle: Given that by the time she decides to retire she'll (hopefully) have grown up a little (personality-wise, she's an adult, just hard for people to believe that sometimes) she will most likely hand over the gadgets to someone who seems to love adventure and gizmoes as much as she did at their age. She will be unlikely to choose anyone that really reminds her of herself at that age unless she has decided to grow old disgracefully.

[CrosshairCollie]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

It occurs to me now how few characters I play who actually age.

[Karma]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

The only people who can really pick a successor are the training and gadget heroes. And I don't have those kind of heroes.

 

Not necessarily. Just because they don't have your powers doesn't mean they can't take you legacy, esp. if they can work out how to use gadgets and training to 'copy' your most well-known abilities.

 

I can see someone finding Peter Parker's Web formula in the future (or him giving it to them) and using some special spider-gloves etc. to become 'Spider-man II' even if they never get bitten by a radioactive spider. Sure they won't have 'spider sense', but then few people really know about that.

[Clonus]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Not necessarily. Just because they don't have your powers doesn't mean they can't take you legacy, esp. if they can work out how to use gadgets and training to 'copy' your most well-known abilities.

 

I can see someone finding Peter Parker's Web formula in the future (or him giving it to them) and using some special spider-gloves etc. to become 'Spider-man II' even if they never get bitten by a radioactive spider. Sure they won't have 'spider sense', but then few people really know about that.

 

I can see someone else adopting the identity if it was lying fallow, but Parker would never pick someone to play the role unless they were someone who already had spider powers and had decided that great power meant great responsibility. He'd basically only be acknowledging a choice made by fate.

[Hermit]

Re: Superhero Legacy. Passing on a Name

 

Aquatic-Half Atlantean son of Stingray and Amphibian who was put back in time as a baby, there is a chance thanks to his biological dad that any kids might keep some abilities even as quarter Atlanteans or the like. His own aging process seems to be human thus far, but it is possibly a BIT slower so no telling how long he'll be around. Aquatic would be surprised if anyone started using his name, but if they were decent and good, more power to them . He really wouldn't want one of his kids (if he ever has any) to take up the mantle...which is why at least one , in a fit of teenage rebellion, might.

 

Mole-Mole's seen a future where he has kids, but he's unsure if any can or do inherit HIS powers. if any did, they'd probably get first dibs ,and unlike Aquatic, he'd be happy to show any of his children the ropes. Should an outsider show up using the Mole name, Adam would have pretty high standards and heaven help the newcomer if he didn't act like a hero, because then a (By then) pretty high point tunneling brick might "convince" the punk to find his own name.