Heroes from simpler times in the modern setting

[Richard Logue]

I could use some advice on this. (And if I've put this thread in the wrong area, please accept my apologies and move it to the right area.)

 

6th edition.

 

If you go with the accords that superheroes in simpler times (pulp era, Golden Age, Victorian, etc.) should be built on fewer points, what happens when they "time travel" to more complicated times? Do they just become underpowered compared to their new contemporaries, or should they be adjusted somehow to be more or less equal?

 

Specifically, I am trying to decide how to make a group of NPCs I'll have in my modern supers campaign. They are a team of "supers" from the Victorian era in the same vein as the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. In the background story of the millieu, they've come to the future and are having trouble getting back to their own time, so they may be here awhile.

 

So how should I build them, do you think - on a lower amount of points because they're from a less-powered time, or on a more standard amount of points because they're here now and may never be able to go back home again? How would you do it?

[Richard Logue]

Re: Heroes from simpler times in the modern setting

 

Also, as a secondary question, were I to run a League Extraordinary Gentlemen-styled game set in the late Victorian era, how should I have the players make their characters? I would think I'd set them up with the parameters for "powerful heroic" or possibly even "very powerful heroic" with requirements like powers have to be focus-based or spellcasting-based, but I'm not sure. I've never run anything using HERO System other than modern supers games.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Heroes from simpler times in the modern setting

 

I think the feel and general attitudes are more important that the points - especially as I don't think points reflect anything particularly more exacting than playstyle.

 

I would build them on the number of points you think is appropriate to the game you want to run. More points just means more options will be introduced, not necessarily more complexity. One thing I would do playing in a game with a Golden Age feel is worry less about what a build can do Exactly and more about what it should do in Spirit.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Heroes from simpler times in the modern setting

 

Also' date=' as a secondary question, were I to run a [i']League Extraordinary Gentlemen[/i]-styled game set in the late Victorian era, how should I have the players make their characters? I would think I'd set them up with the parameters for "powerful heroic" or possibly even "very powerful heroic" with requirements like powers have to be focus-based or spellcasting-based, but I'm not sure. I've never run anything using HERO System other than modern supers games.

 

Heroic is a good guideline, or even slightly over that so that you can get a supernatural character or two in the group. I would hope you don't have to put requirements on the Players to build things, they should understand what the difference between X-Men and LoEG characters are. They should automatically start building in that vein. . .

[Doc Democracy]

Re: Heroes from simpler times in the modern setting

 

I think that heroes from simpler times are more archetypal and elemental in their natures. So I would think that they would have limits on the number of advantages and disadvantages on their powers and possibly be more directly powerful than modern types but less subtle.

 

Doc

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Heroes from simpler times in the modern setting

 

I think the answer to your question really depends on the role you want these time-displaced NPCs to fill in your campaign. Do you want them to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your PCs as allies, or give them a good fight as opponents, and therefore be competitive in their abilities with the PCs? Will they be sources of useful skills and advice for the PCs but not rival their importance to the campaign setting, or even need the PCs to rescue them, hence being appropriately less powerful?

 

If you want the Victorian heroes to be more powerful in the modern world than their home era, remember that many supers settings include some rationale for why superhumans begin appearing in the 20th Century. The Champions Universe uses a rise in ambient magic as the cause, but other settings favor a surge of "cosmic energy" or "quantum flux," widespread exposure to a gene-altering virus, tapping into a "psychic gestalt dimension," and so on. You could postulate that these timelost heroes, exceptional in their own day, are able to connect with the supers-generating phenomenon in the modern world to become even more extraordinary.

[Lucius]

Re: Heroes from simpler times in the modern setting

 

I think that heroes from simpler times are more archetypal and elemental in their natures. So I would think that they would have limits on the number of advantages and disadvantages on their powers and possibly be more directly powerful than modern types but less subtle.

 

Doc

 

Really??

 

So you actually think a Victorian character is more likely to have this powerset

 

Mental Powers: Multipower, 60-point reserve Cost 60

Mind Control 12d6 (60 Active Points) Cost 12

Mental Illusions 12d6 (60 Active Points) Cost 12

Telepathy 12d6 (60 Active Points)Cost 12

 

As opposed to this one?

 

Hypnosis: Multipower, 60-point reserve, (60 Active Points); all slots Extra Time (1 Minute, -1 1/2), Eye Contact Required (-1/2), Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (1/2 DCV; -1/2), Stops Working If Mentalist Is Stunned (-1/2), Incantations (You are getting sleepy....; -1/4), Requires A Roll (Skill roll, -1 per 20 Active Points modifier; -1/4) Cost 13

Mind Control 12d6 (60 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Minute, -1 1/2), Eye Contact Required (-1/2), Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (1/2 DCV; -1/2), Stops Working If Mentalist Is Stunned (-1/2), Incantations (You are getting sleepy....; -1/4), Requires A Roll (Skill roll, -1 per 20 Active Points modifier; -1/4) Cost 3

Mental Illusions 12d6 (60 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Minute, -1 1/2), Eye Contact Required (-1/2), Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (1/2 DCV; -1/2), Stops Working If Mentalist Is Stunned (-1/2), Incantations (You are getting sleepy....; -1/4), Requires A Roll (Skill roll, -1 per 20 Active Points modifier; -1/4) Cost 3

Telepathy 12d6 (60 Active Points); Extra Time (1 Minute, -1 1/2), Eye Contact Required (-1/2), Concentration, Must Concentrate throughout use of Constant Power (1/2 DCV; -1/2), Stops Working If Mentalist Is Stunned (-1/2), Incantations (You are getting sleepy....; -1/4), Requires A Roll (Skill roll, -1 per 20 Active Points modifier; -1/4) Cost 3

PLUS

Post Hypnotic Suggestion: Trigger (Activating the Trigger requires a Zero Phase Action, Trigger requires a Turn or more to reset; +1/4) for up to 60 Active Points of Hypnosis Powers, Invisible Power Effects (Inobvious to [one Sense Group], effects of Power are Invisible to target; +3/4) (26 Active Points); Extra Time (5 Minutes, Only to Activate, -1) Cost 13

 

 

And mind you, that's only one of the first things I thought of.

 

If anything, an earlier character's power is more likely to be more complex and more restricted.

 

Victorian sorcerer? Say hello to Extra Time, Incantations, Gestures, Focus, Window of Opportunity (I cannot do ANY Hermetic magic while Mercury is retrograde!)

 

Super detective ala Holmes? Retrocognition with Skill Roll (Deduction) and a number of other Limitations probably.

 

Unless it's already part of your continuity that what we think of as "golden" or "silver" age heroes with relatively unrestricted powers were around that early, then pulp or Victorian era heroes at least should have MORE Limitations, not fewer. Advantages, I'm not so sure about, but I can't really see saying "fewer" on those either.

 

On the issue of "how many points" or generally "how powerful" I have to say that if I were to go by what I know (which is very limited compared to many others here, I know) of the comic books of the "Golden Age" I'm not sure their characters are necessarily either less powerful or less complicated than later characters- maybe more of a tendency to be "one trick ponies" with only a single defining power, but that observation is still not true of such Golden Age figures as Green Lama, Amazing Man - or Superman.

 

But to get back to the Original Post and Original Point - Lord Liaden nailed it.

The real question is, what do you WANT them to be able to do?

 

Lucius Alexander

 

After eating radioactie pepper, the palindromedary becomes - the Green Llama!

[Richard Logue]

Re: Heroes from simpler times in the modern setting

 

Thanks, everyone for your collective input. I guess it really sums up with "build NPCs with as many points as needed to do the things they need to do." This is a philosophy I've always used, but with the idea that these particular people are from another time, I got mixed up in the minutia of build points.

 

Ghost-Angel, I wish my players were that easy! I tell them the theme and background and genre for any given campaign and ruleset and I still often have to coach them during chargen to make sure they stay within form. Some get it, some don't. Saul Goode.

 

Lucius, I very much appreciate the examples of the sorts of Limitations that could be used for such characters!