Pre-campaign outline.

[Spence]

This is a very rough initial outline. Just to help me think.....

 

 

 

The campaign world will revolve around incidents in ‘The City’ rather than the rest of the world. And like many existing comics, manga and anime, there are changes that are simply accepted as being ‘the way it is’, with no great effort expended trying to explain the whys. The City is located in the U.S. and will be a large industrial city that is both a central hub for rail, river and seaborne commerce.

 

Even though the campaign itself tends to ignore the world at large, there is a need to give a very brief overview. While the year is 1950, the world political landscape is the same as 1935 as presented in Pulp Hero, including possessions and colonies. (Note: I am using the Pulp Hero world maps as my atlas).

 

Notable exceptions are:

 

• WW1 and WW2 never happened.
  
• The Soviet Union does not exist, the area noted as the USSR is the Russian Empire ruled by the Czar.
  
• The areas of Germany, Poland and Prussia comprise the German Empire
  
• The areas of Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania comprise the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.
  

 

Technology

 

Is a mix of 40's/50's with stunted areas of development. Without the world wars to stimulate industrialization and technological advancement there are some major differences.

 

 

• Electronics is still primitive, think large bulky and tubes. While shortwave radios exist, they are temperamental and short ranged. Most long range communication is via courier or cable/telegram. Phones exist in the cities and but availability and service declines rapidly the farther away you get and rely on operators rather than dialing. Computers and Radar do not even exist in concept.
  
• The highway systems do not have anything like the Interstate System. Even in countries where the automobile has become common the roads systems differ little from those in 1935. For travel and commerce, the train provides the ability to travel, second only to ships for commercial transport.
  
• Aviation technology is little different than 1935 and almost entirely civilian driven. While the militaries of the world are finally coming to acknowledge aircraft as being useful, they have been relegated to reconnaissance and courier duties. While passenger planes do exist they are still dangerous and expensive to use for the common civilian. Most commercial air travel is via airship. (note: major deviation from the real world, in 1920 German scientists discovered/invented Herbewegungsgas. Able to be synthesized relatively easy and cost effectively, Herbewegungsgas provides roughly three times the lift of Hydrogen while being inert. This major breakthrough propelled airships from experiments to functional transportation)
  
• Armies are still organized and equipped little different than 1910 and geared more toward small brush wars and suppressing colonial revolts than fighting major wars against any of the Great Powers. With no major conflicts to spur development nothing has really changed. Crew served machineguns being the most notable addition. Some experimental tanks exist, but differ little from the primitive versions that existed in our WW1.
  
• At sea the Battleship is still King and military and commercial seagoing technology has changed very little from what it was in our world in 1920. The vast majority of all commerce and passenger service is by sea.
  
• Forensic Science is not very developed. While fingerprinting has been accepted in law enforcement and the courts, being tied to physical card records and manual comparisons makes their practical use extremely limited.
  

 

Government and law enforcement.

 

The government may not always be right, but they try to do the right thing. The various law enforcement agencies are also the ‘good guys’. A corrupt official or police officers is considered an aberration and something to be rooted out rather than symptomatic of them as a whole. Patriotism and good citizenship are seen as virtues to the general public which lacks the cynicism that seems to dominate the real world. It should be noted that jurisdictional boundaries are jealously guarded and more than one criminal has escaped justice by ‘crossing the line’, especially with minor crimes. But this is more due to a fierce sense of self reliance and unwillingness to have ‘someone else clean up the mess, then a distrust of other agencies. If the crime escalates it will become a matter for the State Police or the FBI. When this happens local law enforcement will cooperate, even if they believe it was well within their capabilities and resent the other agencies meddling. But when things get really bad they are quite capable of setting personnel pride aside and cooperating whole heartedly.

 

Major government and law enforcement organizations:

 

• Office of Special Services (OSS). Spies. They are the federal governments’ intelligence agency.
  
• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
  
• State Police. Have jurisdiction over law enforcement within their state boundaries.
  
• Sheriff/Constable. Exercise jurisdiction in areas that lack more formalized police departments. In other words, if there is no city base police department, then there will be a Sheriff.
  
• Police Department. Have jurisdiction over law enforcement within municipal boundaries.
  

 

And that pretty much wraps up the world view. As I mentioned before, the game will center in a city so beyond a general understanding there is no need for greater detail.

 

Education

The world is simpler. The vast majority of the populations’ educational needs are fully met by the public schools ending with High School. Going on to University is not uncommon, but on the other hand most people do not need to. Schools teaching grades 1-5 differ very little from what was normal in the US in the 40’s-50’s. But at the 6th grade upward it changes. (note: this is a change I am making that uses concepts as portrayed in anime and it gives me options as a GM I can exploit. Or to admit it, simply because I like it.) City schools are large self contained campuses that also have on site dorms. School uniforms are the norm and remain so on through University.

 

 

Superbeings

 

The number of Superheroes and Supervillains is limited and small. In this campaign the emphasis will be on developing an ongoing rivalry between the Heroes and their nemeses. In the earlier comics, Batman didn’t have a massive rotisserie with hundreds of foes; he had a small number of recurring enemies. While there will be a few NPC Heroes, the players should anticipate that they will be the only Heroes that can save the city.

Their foes will consist of handful of master villains, a number of second tier supervillains and mooks as needed. While I will kick off things with an initial cast of villains, my intent is to use the first few encounters plus the PC’ Complications/Back-story to flesh out/customize the Master Villain.

The general outline of the campaign will have 1-2 master plots with 1-3 unrelated sub-plots at any given time. Was the robbery at the Chin Low Trading Company a simple robbery? Or was it part of a new plot by the nefarious Master Fu Manchu. And is it in anyway related to the sudden disappearance of Professor Dietrich and his daughter? While generally episodic, there will be tie in for some story arc’s.

 

The general build limits will be Standard Superheroic and lean toward a more power based game that skill based. Skills will be bought in the more general sense than specific in keeping with the broad brush feel in adventure stories and earlier superhero stories.

 

Initial game sessions

Since all of the players have never played any Hero System game, let alone Hero 6th, the initial sessions will be more teaching the game and system. To facilitate this the initial PC’s will all be a part of a pre-generated superteam. While many experienced RPG players prefer to build their own characters, many times when a person builds a character concept in a completely new system they make mistakes that ‘ruin’ the character and taint their view on the game. With a pre-gen there is no risk of the PC being built incorrectly and no special attachment to it. Once the first couple sessions are over, not only do the players have a sense of the rules, but they also have an idea of the setting and general world sense. This in turn gives them the tools to build a PC that they will not only like, but that has relevance in the game world.

 

 

 

Once again this is all just a rough. But it helps to put it down and take a look later with fresh eyes. Plus reading peoples comments tend to sharpen my ideas.

[csyphrett]

Re: Pre-campaign outline.

 

What are you building for your team, Spence?

CES

[kahuna's bro]

Re: Pre-campaign outline.

 

does magic exist in the gameworld or are the heroes science /athlete types?

[Spence]

Re: Pre-campaign outline.

 

Wow, as soon as I actually get going real life intruded with a vengeance. Not to mention losing Thursday to the Sounders game

 

 

 

What are you building for your team, Spence?

CES

 

I have actually been toying with several ideas. But I want the intro team to cover a wide variety of supers so new players can see how things work and have a better handle when they plan/build their own characters. Since they are supers they will all have superpowers, not just be normal people with 'stuff'. But beyond that I am open. My current half build archetypes are:

 

Martial Artist (centered on non-ranged Chi effects)

Supermage (ala early Doctor Strange)

Brick

Energy Projector

Mentalist (but no active mind control/reading, senses and other tele's such a telekinesis)

Weapons Master (centering on non-ranged/non-high tech weapons)

 

While most are based on non-ranged abilities that does not mean no ranged abilities. But I want to lean toward up close and personal in the teaching game rather than having a PC hang out on the edge of the battle sniping. Of course that makes an Energy Projector and a Supermage build a bit tricky.

 

 

does magic exist in the gameworld or are the heroes science /athlete types?

 

Oh yes, most definitely. One of my favorite villainesses (sp?) is an Evil Sorceress

 

But it will be a while tell I could trot her out directly. But her minions and plans will most likely be the cause of one of he secondary story arcs for some time.....

 

Since I am planning a pseudo 50's era world any tech types will be using super-science or perhaps alien tech. I also am leaning toward a person using devices instead of the Ironman clone plus as I mentioned above, for the intros I want the PC to have powers, not just stuff.

 

Of course after they get the hang of the game and start their own character concepts, if someone has their heart set on it, who am I to say they can't build an Ironman..... It won't be too hard to come up with a concept with the PC having an innate power that animates/controls the suit.

[csyphrett]

Re: Pre-campaign outline.

 

My initial thought for this is you need a convention villain, and a real villian. You need a villain that the team won't care about with no ties to your start up because you don't want to have to tie everything together if the players decide to change out after your first few sessions. You need someone simple and easy at first, with a simple scheme that has no or minor ties to the pregen.

 

Maybe someone like Syndrome from the incredibles, or a Joker.

 

Then once you get your line up complete, more settled you can bring in ties to the characters like a master thief in love with the mentalist.

 

I like to use one villain for each member but you are going to have to see how many schemes you can actually run at one time with a bunch of new guys.

CES

[Spence]

Re: Pre-campaign outline.

 

My initial thought for this is you need a convention villain, and a real villian. You need a villain that the team won't care about with no ties to your start up because you don't want to have to tie everything together if the players decide to change out after your first few sessions. You need someone simple and easy at first, with a simple scheme that has no or minor ties to the pregen.

 

Maybe someone like Syndrome from the incredibles, or a Joker.

 

Then once you get your line up complete, more settled you can bring in ties to the characters like a master thief in love with the mentalist.

 

I like to use one villain for each member but you are going to have to see how many schemes you can actually run at one time with a bunch of new guys.

CES

 

Pretty much along my line of thought, though I don't necessarily use one per player. My plan for the initial villain is a simple mid-power level Master Thief and his hench-villains plus mooks on a crime spree. Since I intend to have a really low overall population of superbeings in this game almost any super introduced will most likely return at one point or another.

 

With new players I will be sticking to one story at first, allowing them to concentrate on how to play before worrying about multiple clues and arc's.

 

For the players characters I am going with what has worked with a new group in the past. They start with my prebuild. After a few sessions, once a player figures they have a handle on things, they can keep the character, adjust the character or build their own for the same base point of the prebuilds. They keep any accumulated XP, and the new PC continues as if he was there all along. I know that that will draw some boo's and hisses from purists, but for the initial start up of the game it avoids a lot of reworking of the entire campaign and eliminates the need to come up with a way to introduce yet another Hero in a universe that is supposed to be sparsely populated with them. Also eliminates the need to explain where the old hero went.

 

Of course later additions will carry all the trappings and issues that they come with.

[csyphrett]

Re: Pre-campaign outline.

 

I can understand the dropin. Maybe keeping the same disads for the new character would be a good base rule to help the drop in part.

CES