Help me get a Campaign established

[Eponymous]

Ok. I love to play supers. I've played in two long running games. I GM lots. Mainly Pulp-Adventure in the 1930's. I've tried to get a supers game off the ground 3 times before.

 

My friends who like my Pulp games again want me (again) to run a 4-colour Champions game. I want it to succeed this time and actually turn into the campaign we all want.

 

My problem is I'm unsure how to go about setting up a supers game?

My in my Pulp game I have a arc I want to tell. eg. Nazi's are collecting artefacts of power from around the globe - they must be stopped! Nazi's are raiding Atlantis for orichalcum to power a super weapon to destroy Manhattan - they must be stopped? Nazi's are preparing to build a super weapon on the Moon - you guess it ...they must be stopped. [i'm using Nazi here just for convenience... it could be White Slavers, Yellow Peril, Thugie, Occultists, Martians, a Mad Scientist etc you get the picture].

 

So this structure doesn't translate well to supers - supers is a different thing. I don't want to just do villain of the week either. I read a lot of DC/Marvel four colour and this isnt helping me either.

 

So Help!!! Please!!!

 

Those of you who have been doing it for a long time - Storn and crowd I'll looking at you. How do you do it?

 

MrE

[JmOz]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Actualy all of your pulp stories sound fine to me for a supers game, except change who the bad guys are (Or leave them, they are all appropriate). All you need to do is remember the difference in power level. So the Nazi's now have blaster's and Captain Nazi* and his evil Rahtz are there to make them more of a threat.

 

The core of a lot of comics is the pulp era. It just is a larger palate to work with.

 

please excuse my spelling, tired and not paying as close of attention as I shouls

 

*Captain Nazi is an actual DC comic villain, use to fight Captain Marvel (Shazam! fame)

[Eponymous]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Ok that's positive. Thanks for the feedback.

 

So I could set the game in the Golden Age and do pre-during-post war stuff.

 

Or change 'Nazi' to 'Viper' and do silver age/iron age type 4 colour game... ok that was a very helpful mind-flip you gave me there.

I hope others have perspectives to share as well.

 

What comics age is the right age to set up in? How much if any DC, Marvel etc continuity do people include in their game. Or do you saty whole-cloth in the Champions-verse?

 

MrE

[Matt Holck]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Currently, I write up a villain for each character in the group of roughly the same power.

4 agents might be count as one villain against the character

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

One bit of advice would be to introduce villain characters or agencies that will resonate with individual player characters. That way, the players really look forward to crossing swords / trading laser blasts with their "favorite foes." Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done.

 

You know your players well -- who have they really liked to fight in the Pulp games, and why? Was it someone who was really tough to beat? Someone who really pushed their Psych Lim buttons? Someone who matched or countered their abilities very well? It may take a try or two to create that character that they love to hate, but it's worth it.

 

Another suggestion, since you've run 1930s Pulp games with these players -- why not tie a plot in your new game into something from the 1930s games? Was there ever something that the bad guys got away with, and the players wished they had another chance? Well, this is their chance. All they need to do is investigate a decades-old mystery (perhaps meeting and questioning one or two of their now-older Pulp heroes) to find the Missing McGuffin and set things right before Mr. New Bad Guy figures out how to use it. Done correctly, you can build a "deja vu" feeling in the players, followed by the flash of realization and a tumble down memory lane before solving the mystery and saving the day.

 

One other thing I've done to good effect is to require each player to provide 5 NPCs -- not DNPCs, just friends/family/coworkers in their characters' lives. All I asked for was a name and 1-2 sentences about each one. (i.e. "Dr. Ferguson -- he's my favorite university professor, and I'm a graduate student working in his High Energy Physics lab.") I also make a real effort to NOT make them turn into DNPCs. They may be involved on the periphery of various adventures, but are rarely if ever in any danger. Mainly, they're there to help flesh out the PCs' world and maybe provide some plot hooks.

[Arlyansor]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

One thing I've often found is that my players tend to be more emotionally invested into a game if there is a definite feeling of 'cause & effect' during the game.

 

For example, if one (or more) of the PC's has invisibility, then instead of having the bad guys either be unable to perceive him (unless they're really good), have them slowly develop technology/magic/psionics that enables them to detect invisible people.

 

Or, if one of your players has a habit of blowing up every group of bad guys, have the bad guys develop tactics to spread out and prevent their wholesale slaughter.

 

If your players repeatedly want to do something specific (whatever it is) then allow them to do so, but make it harder to achieve the more times they try it (so long as there is a feasible reason for that). It (usually) makes your players start thinking, and start planning things a bit better.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Yeah, the bad guys should not be idiots (at least, not totally).

 

I will add the following advice. If there are any special tactics or rules tweaks or whatever that Characters like using to gain the advantage, there is absolutely no reason why an occasional Bad Guy couldn't do the same thing, or even go one or two better.

 

That is NOT to say that everything the PCs do should eventually be replicated by their opposition, but the possibility should be kept in mind.

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

One thing I've often found is that my players tend to be more emotionally invested into a game if there is a definite feeling of 'cause & effect' during the game.

 

For example, if one (or more) of the PC's has invisibility, then instead of having the bad guys either be unable to perceive him (unless they're really good), have them slowly develop technology/magic/psionics that enables them to detect invisible people.

 

Or, if one of your players has a habit of blowing up every group of bad guys, have the bad guys develop tactics to spread out and prevent their wholesale slaughter.

 

If your players repeatedly want to do something specific (whatever it is) then allow them to do so, but make it harder to achieve the more times they try it (so long as there is a feasible reason for that). It (usually) makes your players start thinking, and start planning things a bit better.

 

The corollary to this, however, is to not stomp on the characters' schticks. The bad guys should learn, but they shouldn't completely cancel out a character's effectiveness, especially if it's a core part of the character.

 

For instance: Spidey gets by with his Danger Sense and an insanely-high DCV. Despite this, the mooks still try and plug him with guns. A few will get creative (AOE attacks, guided missiles, etc.) and get in a hit, but that's not the bulk of what happens. Now, if *every* mook started carrying grenades and throwing nets and what-not, that would be stepping a bit too heavily on Spidey's schtick.

 

In the invisibility example, not all of the bad guys should have Detect Invisiblity or senses to which the PC isn't invisible. The obvious exception is if they're expecting that PC to show up. The number of such equipped bad guys should go up, but nowhere near to 100%.

 

Personally, I've made it a plotline. The PCs discover that thugs that shouldn't have gadgets like that are starting to be surprisingly better prepared for them. Where are they getting these things? Who is this "Supplier"? And why is he equipping these goons?

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Complete side note: I've also given a few individual mooks and goons fun personality traits. Joe McPsycho charging the brick and hitting him with his rifle butt, even though there's zero chance of that hurting the hero. One guy who can't seem to say anything right. ("If you don't do what the boss says, Phil, yer gonna be persona au gratin!") Some thug that recruited his reluctant, much smarter brother to help on a job.

 

One time, a hero sneaking into a villain base overheard some agents talking over the relative merits of working for various supervillains. ("Yeah, Windchill ain't so bad. He's more concerned about his vendetta, so we get to keep a bigger share of the loot. Now Black Harlequin, lemme tell ya, ya don't wanna work for that psycho...")

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

The following is well worth a look. One of the authors (Mike) is a close friend (and, ahem, I am in a couple of his anecdotes). Anyhow, copious quantities of advice on GMing and campaign creation:

 

http://www.campaignmastery.com/blog/

[casualplayer]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Lots of the classic comics teams just happened to show up at the same time to fight something that they couldn't defeat separately. Coincidence is your friend.

[Ian Mackinder]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Lots of the classic comics teams just happened to show up at the same time to fight something that they couldn't defeat separately. Coincidence is your friend.

 

Indeed. Well worth noting that there are many REAL-LIFE coincidences that, if put in a comic, would derided by many as just too hard to beleive.

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Oh to kick off the campaign, you could have Viper sealing some Nazi super weapon, or aleast the fabled lost (Nazi) treasure!

[Greywind]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Sealing it where?

[BoloOfEarth]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

I think he meant "stealing".

[Rune]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

Consider what kind of four color campaign that you are looking for. Is this an all mutants game like the X-Men or perhaps everyone has some kind of tie to the supernatural? If you want the campaign to be more like the Avengers with a wide mix of characters, that is a valid approach as well. Think about what your want to be the first big story arc (VIPER plot, Nazis trying to establish the Fifth Reich, angry aliens) and build from there. I find it helpful to give the players some basic information about the campaign world, so that they can keep this in mind while building their characters. If there is no super tech in the world, you need to let your players know before they start proposing Iron Man clones.

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: Help me get a Campaign established

 

I think he meant "stealing".

Or perhaps welding it in place with LOTS of adhesive... Sorry.