Star Hero campaigns?

[redleaf]

Hi. I'm running a pbem Star Hero campaign and it's going well, but I'm thinking of starting a new one. (But keeping the old one going, of course...don't wanna panic the players!)

 

What kinds of campaigns are people running? Based on existing universes or all-new scenarios? I'm doing a Star Wars one right now and I'm looking for something fun and new. If people could give me a bit of info on what they're doing.

 

I guess what I want is a solid campaign that allows for long-term play. So that's really what I'm asking, I guess. Successful long-term scenarios.

[redleaf]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

I thought I could refine my question a bit. So I broke it up into two:

 

1. Are there any pre-made campaigns that have proved to be long-term playable?

 

2. In terms of homemade campaigns, what are some examples of metaplots that have worked for you? (I mean worked as in they allowed for a long-term campaign.)

 

I've played a lot of Champions and keeping it going was easier, in my opinion, because it's a modern setting. For some reason (for me as a GM) it's easy to have a long-term game in a modern setting.

 

For a fantasy setting, I guess what keeps it going is partly metaplot but also the accumulation of wealth and power. (I guess this might also work for a space campaign.)

 

I want to have a long-term game because I like to see characters build and grow, and establish a solid mythology.

 

I guess what I'm asking is "What worked for you?" in a space campaign, and then I can digest it and figure out whether these ideas will work with my group.

[Nolgroth]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

When I was running my Gemini Ascendant game, the overarching metaplot was essentially stolen right from Babylon 5; archaeologists release an ancient evil during their excavations. The only difference is that the ancient evil is not a race, per se, but rather powerful members of a race. They were deemed "criminal" and imprisoned for "all time" just before the race apotheosized. Once they were released, the ancient beings set about trying to establish power bases for themselves. Out of the four that were released, one established himself as the power behind the throne for one of the modern species. One established itself as the leader of a group of invading humans, one disappeared completely from public awareness and the other was slain by the player characters.

 

Several campaign tropes emerged. Some were accidental and others were intentional. A couple of examples:

1. Planets were bad. This was unintentional. Just being what they were (centralized places where people interact) most bad things tended to happen on planets.

2. If it could be flown, Wade (one of the characters) could crash it. Conversely, he could also pull off the most daring stunts when needed.

3. Something was always going on. Even if the characters were not on hand, things happened. I provided news feeds to them as often as inspiration allowed in order to demonstrate this.

4. The characters could change the universe in meaningful ways. Case in point, Samantha and her crew created a black hole / rift in time-space. Never got to explore the long-term ramifications of this.

 

Those were some of the examples of things that happened in the campaign. Towards the end, it started to wander into more episodic storylines and less of the overarching metaplot of finding and killing the ancient evils. Was still fun though.

 

You can read my blog to get a huge portion of the campaign in the form of after session summaries with commentary and what not. Search the forums for Gemini Ascendant and you can find both the thread that carried us through, an equipment thread, and (I believe) some of the sessions turned into semi-prose stories by ghost-angel.

[BlueCloud2k2]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

Hi. I'm running a pbem Star Hero campaign and it's going well' date=' but I'm thinking of starting a new one. (But keeping the old one going, of course...don't wanna panic the players!)[/quote']

 

I'd be interested in playing, if you are looking for players.

 

What kinds of campaigns are people running? Based on existing universes or all-new scenarios? I'm doing a Star Wars one right now and I'm looking for something fun and new. If people could give me a bit of info on what they're doing.

 

The best one I played in was a monthly game that lasted 6 sessions and was based loosely on the Stargate series... that one washed out because the GM lost his job and had to move. Basically it was one of the Alternate Universes accessed through the Quantum Mirror and the campaign started after Apophis invaded Earth and was driven off by SG-1 from the TV-series reality. (We were members of the SGA, not SGC).

 

My friends and I have discussed my running a game based upon John Ringo's Into the Looking Glass and Vorpal Blade books (very good reads, if you get the chance).

 

IMHO, you can never go wrong with Space Opera and you can go very wrong with Trek. I like Trek, just have never played in a game that wasn't a mini-Trekkie convention. I stayed for 3 sessions before I got sick of the condescension from the other players for not knowing EVERY LITTLE DETAIL about EVERY SINGLE TREK (movie, TV show, book, you name it - Excuse the frack out of me, but I have a life).

 

Having finished ranting, do what big business does: hold a focus group. "What do you as the players want to play."

[redleaf]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

Nolgroth gave me some ideas!

 

And BlueCloud and makes sense.

 

BlueCloud suggested I poll the players. I think I kind of am. Right now I'm doing a Star Wars PBEM using Star Hero, but the players are newbies to the Hero System. I think I want to do a campaign with people who are already Hero System fans, so asking here makes sense, because I think all Hero players must like something similar, right? Otherwise we'd be hanging out in a GURPS forum (if there is one).

 

So I guess I'm really asking what players here have found to keep a Star Hero campaign going long term.

 

So far I'm hearing that making a game successful is very similar to making a Champions campaign work (Nolgroth's descriptions made me think that).

 

BlueCloud is saying stay away from Trek but go more general space opera. Or better yet take a lesser-known world and jump off from that. (I'll check out John Ringo right after this.)

[Nolgroth]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

Glad to be of assistance.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

Like Nolgroth, my Star Hero campaign was based on a metaplot of invading evil, but mine was a race based partially on the Arachnids of Battlelords of the 23rd Century and the Elder Worms of I.C.E.'s Darkspace. Lots of stuff going on in my campaign setting. I stole a lot of elements from Sci-fi and Cyberpunk anime like Bubblegum Crisis, Sol Bianca, Iczer-1, The Guyver etc. For example, Genom, the huge corporate conglomerate from the BGC universe existed as one of the largets corporations in the galaxy, as did Chronos corporation from the Guyver series. An NPC the characters encounter (and sort of adopted) was based on the main character from the anime Iczer-1.

 

Psionics played an important role in the campaign as one of the major plot points was the fact that the evil race has been invading for centuries and they are the force behind anti-psi programs all over the galaxy. The enemy agents (based on the Zainmoth from Darkspace which is simply I.C.E.'s version of an Illithid) were capable of assuming the identity of anyone they kill and "brainsuck", but they could be rooted out by Telepath's, so their first priority is to get a society to outlaw Psionics. Thus in the campaign there is a huge political debate about the legality of Psionics use and many political parties who opposed development of Psi poiwers. Many independent planets have outlawed psionic activity entirely and some populations are so hostile to psis that known telepaths are often hunted down and lynched.

One of the PC's in this campaign setting was a doctor who worked for the Federal Star Rangers. He was secretly an unregistered Psi so he had to keep his powers under wraps (Federation law was harsh on unregistered psis) events conspired to make him an active participant in the Anti-psi debate however and he ended up discovering the existence of a living world...he learned how to communicate with an entire planet. He then discovered over the course of the game that ALL living planets were sentient, its just that most of them were simply sleeping, but those that fully awaken have access to vast powers that they can bring to bear against The Enemy...

[Eldos]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

If I could make a suggestion it would be Traveller. One of the first settings, the scope of the known universe is truly vast and only in a small section of the galaxy. It's in Hero form (granted 5th Ed if you can find the books) and there are numerous adventure books you can poach ideas off of.

[Doc Shadow]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

I used this combined Star HERO/ Space Opera campaign that worked out pretty well. I used Space Opera for the history and ship combat, and HERO for the rest.

[redleaf]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

I used this combined Star HERO/ Space Opera campaign that worked out pretty well. I used Space Opera for the history and ship combat' date=' and HERO for the rest.[/quote']

 

Wow. Very cool attachment. It's short and sweet, and a great basis for a campaign. Kudos.

[Doc Shadow]

Re: Star Hero campaigns?

 

Thank you. You flatter me sir. That said, it was a fun campaign.