Thinking Back ...

[Sketchpad]

Hiya Gang,

I was working on some Champions stuff and started thinking back to various books ... stuff like METE, The Circle, Blood, Dr. McQuark and some others ...anyone ever do anymore work with these in their current campaigns? Am I drudging something up that people are just going to stare vacantly at me with? I don't suppose that Hero is thinking of resurrecting any of these?

[Blue Jogger]

Aaron Allston is the author for METE, The Circle, Blood and Strike Force. He said last year that he's planning to release Strike Force supplements.

You can get more info at http://www.aaronallston.com

 

9/6/2002 (Interview with Aaron Allston)

http://www.gameplayersnetwork.com/rpg/features.asp?gm=herosystem&id=114

[OddHat]

The Circle and Strike Force were both very heavily used in my games for years. I still have The Circle & Mete book, filled with anotations. Don't currently use them.

 

For some reason Deathstroke was the most heavily used non-home brew villain group.

 

Demon was and is the most used non-homebrew evil organization.

[Lord Liaden]

The Circle and METE both played significant recurring roles in past campaigns, although the Circle evolved into less of a team of occult-powered superheroes, and more of a school for mystic heroes, with senior instructors versed in several magic disciplines. (Mystic Masters and The Ultimate Super Mage helped greatly there.) One short campaign revolved around a "class" of students in the Circle.

 

I got a lot of long-term use out of all the goodies left at the end of Wrath of the Seven Horsemen: the Horsemen themselves, the Old Ones, the Worm Scepter, the Stone Crown, and the alien spaceship. They were good for a score or so game sessions, a few hero and villain origins, and a couple of "radiation accidents."

 

The villainous organization VOICE from VOICE of Doom became principle antagonist in one long campaign. I greatly elaborated VOICE for those games; I'm working on collating my notes and updating them for FREd, and hope to share the fruits of my labors with the rest of the board community one day (Steve Long willing).

[winterhawk]

In my efforts on the beta test of HD v2, I revamped a couple of villains from Enemies III and Villany Unbound as an exercise. I also think that Dr. McQuark needs to be included in either Gear & Gadgets or The Ultimate Gadgeteer, even a sidebar mention would be fitting.

[BobGreenwade]

METE definitely had a place in my Champions games, and I'm sorry to see it no longer included in the new Hero Universe. Maybe it'll make a comeback, maybe there are intellectual rights issues involved, or maybe Steve just didn't like it... personally I hope it's the first.

 

Dr. McQuark would have been a part of my games as well if I'd owned the supplement at the time. I agree with Winterhawk that at least a mention in G&G or TUG would be appropriate, Steve willing.

 

Like LL, I too made copious notes updating VOICE, which I may share with the board at some point. They never actually made an appearance in any of my Champions games, though I did have plans....

[pinecone]

The Blood (and Doc) and The 7 horsemen have had a major impact on my game worlds. The others have had more of a inspired by effect, though I use both UNTIL and PRIMUS as well as Viper....

[Enforcer84]

let me see...

 

The Circle:

The circle helped Thor return to when he was snatched from time by Dr. Tempus. Ragnarok occured nigh instantaneously afterwards and a new generation of Asgardian Gods awoke from thier Ice Prison and flocked to the banner of Vidar, Magni, and Modi.

 

METE:

After an invasion was barely turned back and evidence of one of the Aliens from METE had helped the invaders things got ugly and the Enclave left US soil and sought assylum in Canada. By turning vast amounts of collected data to the UN, METE, procured help from UNTIL and many superteams. An orbital spacestation was created to act as a checkpoint to earth for extraterrestrials. Many alien "supervillains" who were actually merely stuck here (Thokk, Herculan, etc) were allowed to leave the planet and stay at the station or go home, they took the opporotunity to leave. Avar-7 was repaired and basically formed an all alien superteam based on the station. The METE station was instrumental in an attack by the Federation (or whatever they were called from Invasion: Target Earth)

 

The Blood: I used them sporadically at first, but a few PC's had Blood Origins. They took center stage when Azor attempted to bring his people back. It went badly, but now there is a Blood City, known as New Eden in Mexico.

 

Dr. McQuark.

I used had the entier SHS&G complex disappear, leaving a big hole. Ferguson the Great was toned down to Dr Ferguson who worked for VIPER, he became a nest leader.

Then McQuark and his staff returned, they had gone on some dimensional exploration mission (accidentally) and when they returned, they were low level supers with fantastic weaponry and powersuits. McQuark founded the Paragon Institute, a no holds barred research institute that also served as a front so that his team could fight crime. He aslo was on the board of directors for the third Sanctuary.

 

Sanctuary: Boring but still floating. A different Island since Destroyer took it out in a mostly ussuccessful attempt to destroy all his enemies in one swell foop.

 

PRIMUS:

Absorbed SAT and pretty much was the first response to metahuman conflict for America. Golden Avenger turned out to be one of the major players in GENOCIDE. The scandal rocked the nation and led to David "Invivctus" Sutherland to become the head of PRIMUS.

This was significantly worse.

 

DEMON:

Found itself in a battle for Dark Magic Supremacy with Dark Seraph and his Unholy Legions. (Black Paladin, the Monster, and a bunch of my own creations)

 

 

VOICE:

I ran the original adventure and things got pretty bloody, we lost two PC's. VOICE was feared like no other by the players. When I got Watchers of the Dragon, Dr Yin Wu and his agents tended to keep them in check.

 

I used Factor 7 because Ares looked so cool. They helped the players on more occasions than they fought to tell the truth. I never liked any of the other original groups from Enemies Assembled. I liked the art (save for Greg Smith's) even less overall so it sits gathering dust.

 

Similarly, I wasn't enamored with Enemies for Hire for the most part they also did nothing.

 

VIllany Unbound was one of my favorites but I sold it for food when I was dumb and in debt. I miss it.

 

Enemies International and EE were not well used.

 

Atlantis never really worked its way into the campaign.

 

Strikeforce was an "alternate world" we used a few times but it was mostly for my reading. Check that, I used the Steel Brigade, but I made their armor more unique to their person, had it created by VIPER and made them look like anime type fighters (thank you Gundam....)

 

I used the charcters from Coreolis Effect, but the group that I ran the adventure for was a one shot and they became NPC's after that.

 

I didn't like the 7 Horesemen and never ran it.

 

 

How's that?

[MoonHunter]

Ah the old days

 

StrikeForce was a major influence upon the way we played Champions for a number of years. While we never used the characters or material directly, it inspired us in given directions. The source and gaming material in StrikeForce was incredible and something that every GM should read.

 

Strong Hold: I think everyone used this suppliment at one time or another. The villians characters were interesting, the layout and NPCs were exceptional, and the whole thing gave a solution to a problem for most campaigns... where do the villians go.

 

Blood: It was something we tried to use, but none of the players fancied it very much. I think we had two blood characters among the 80 or so submitted over the course of various campaigns I was involved in any way.

 

The rest: The GMs of my acquaintance looked at them, adapted what they needed, and ignore the rest. Only one GM actually used them and that was for areas they did not want to work on and would not be applicable in their campaign (METE).

[Theron]

I used METE, but re-named it NASA (the National Alien Studies Administration) and made it a federal agency.

 

I ran a campaign for a while set in a variant of the Strike Force Universe (it helped that I knew a couple of the old players at the time and could milk them for additional background info), so the Blood and the Circle both played a part.

 

Stronghold was also a regular feature of my campaigns, but it was located on an artificial island several miles off the coast of northern California.