need more than plot hooks!

[yukonhorror]

I have ALWAYS wanted to play in a super-heroic game, but I can never find one to play in. So that resorts me to running one, but I am fairly inept at plot cohesion.

 

I have good ideas and can get some from sourcebooks, but filling out the details is the problem. I am not talking about statting out villains or security systems or whatever. I am talking about maps and how to make the adventure in-depth and involved rather than railroaded and boring.

 

As such, I have been looking for print/online modules/adventures in the genre (any system, as I'll convert the material over to HERO), but coming up kind of short. I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction.

 

I can run a fantasy game no problem, but I have experience with fantasy games. As I have never played in a super-heroic game, and I am not an avid comic book collector, I am at a loss on how to formulate good missions for the players.

 

I want to avoid the "super-villain takes bridge hostage. Save civilians and defeat villain." I know that kind of adventure could be fun, but I'd probably run it as the players going in, going full-out combat, defeat villain, and it is done.

 

So in short, any suggestions on good print/online modules/adventures in the genre would be appreciated.

[Christopher]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

Champions 6E should be your first stop. It has 90% of what you need to know and even random "Mission generator Charts".

[csyphrett]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

The 5e Villainy Amock had in depth considerations for emergencies and villains and such.

 

Sometimes you have to tailor the villain to the players if you want to deal with villains.

 

Sometimes you can have an event and run that with your players doing what they can to beat things

CES

[csyphrett]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

I forgot but its important that you take notes about you run. Yesterday's buudy could be tomorrow's enemy and vice versa

CES

[Major Tom 2009]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

Where printed material for adventures is concerned, you don't necessarily have to

stick solely with superhero adventures. Science fiction adventures, for example,

are a good source for plots -- just change the plot from "Space Rangers travel to

an unexplored world to investigate reports of illegal corporate exploitation" to

"Superteam travels to a foreign country in the team jet to investigate a possible

VIPER (or whatever villainous super-agency is up to no good in your campaign)

base operating in the area", and adjust the technology -- weapons and equipment --

accordingly. The same goes for creature or human encounters.

 

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Lord Liaden]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

I also want to second the suggestion of the 5E Champions book Villainy Amok. While it contains no complete adventures, it's essentially a "how to" guide for building interesting superhero scenarios, covering many of the genre classics, with tons of examples and permutations.

 

For published adventures, Hero Games has Champions Battlegrounds, a collection of three complete adventures using official Champions Universe villains (although the book often merely refers to villains statted in other books rather than reprinting them), which are also designed to be linked into a longer campaign arc, hence providing a good example of how to do that. Hero also published a much more extensive adventure along the same lines, Shades Of Black.

 

All of the above are currently in stock in the Hero Games online store. They're all for Fifth Edition, but as per current store policy that also means they're now half price.

[Lord Liaden]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

Here is a thread linking to a number of free online Champions adventures. They're all complete should provide good examples.

[Pizza Man]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

Writing an adventure for champions is different that writing one for D&D.

You reference to "super-villain takes bridge hostage. Save civilians and defeat villain." is just one part of story. maybe the finale...but a lot builds up to it.

 

I start with the caper. Whats the villain up to? Lets say the villain wants to build a single rocket with a specific payload to take out a target. OK, you have a caper, what villain in your roster is likely to pull that off? DeathStroke. So far its just two guys, but they can hire a few mercenary villains.

 

What do they need? A bank heist to meet the payroll. High tech equipment, and a place ton build the rocket without attracting notice. Thats a number of crimes right there. No one in Death Stroke knows how to build a rocket so they must kidnap a rocket scientist and his lovely daughter.

 

Midnight. The alarms at a bank go off. The heroes respond but nothing seems amiss. The local power transformers blow up, plunging the entire area in darkness. That a clue that not everything is as it seems. The heroes will need to break into the bank to find out whats happening. Death Stroke has hired Armadillo to tunnel up into the vault from below. The explosions are to distract the heroes while the villains get away through the sewers.

 

High tech materials are being stolen at a number of industrial sites. Death Stroke has hired Pulsar and a few independents to steal some key ingredients for the rocket (though thats not going to be clear until later). Here is the first villaqin fight of the night, The independents have no idea who hired them they just have a list and are being paid twice what the materials are worth. The heroes investigate the rendezvous point, and its abandoned. The real villains must have been aware of the fight.

 

Make a per check guys. Vs hearing and night vision. a small toy plane is flying overhead. Taken down, its revealed the payload is a camera. Well now the villains know who's interfering with their plans.

 

Trap. More villains are hired to distract the PCs. (the villains are clueless to the fact that they are sacrificial lambs).

In a daring daylight robbery at Star labs The heroes show up to stop a bunch of minions with souped up gadgets. Dressed as super villains, they think they are all that. Once the fight begins the true nature of the trap comes out, its either a big bomb or poison gas.

 

This keeps the heroes busy while the true crime is being committed. The scientist and his daughter are kidnapped. The daughter, being resourceful dropped a note: deathstroke.

 

A few more clues and the heroes head to the secret lair for the final battle.

Will the rocket go off?

Is the beautiful but resourceful daughter still alive?

Will the heroes arrive in time?

 

that's how I work thru an adventure.

1) what is the ultimate caper?

2) who is the villain?

3) What are the steps long the way?

4) What are the clues?

5) ensure lost of fights action. If you can fit a Hunted in, great!

[Nuclear Fridge]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

Well said, Pizza Man -- that is pretty much how I create a plot. The big finale often comes first, then I decide on the 'Big Bad' running the caper.

Of course, once you've set up a pattern for certain villains or villain teams, you can perplex your players by giving the bad guys a different target...

"Wait -- The Warlord has been raiding high-tech firms recently. Why did he just loot a museum exhibit?"

 

I'll add some advice of my own: listen to your players. When they speculate out-of-character about how Villain A's powers are similar to Villain B's, or why the bad guys are co-operating with a major world threat -- that can give you some angles you can use, that you never considered. It happens to me all the time!

[red_eagle123]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

Some other points I'd like to bring up for your consideration.

 

When designing adventures for your super-hero campaign, depending on your setting it's possible to pull in material that isn't strictly capes and tights. Magic beings, aliens in spaceships, multi-dimensional invaders, evolved animals, etc etc. These can all fit within a super-hero campaign. As an example: In the game I'm running right now, I imposed a strict No-Magic rule. Superheroes only appeared in the past 20 years, and prior to that it was history as it appears in the history books. Despite all this, I managed to work in some multi-dimensional travel for the PC's, including taking them to a dimension where magic works just fine. They even ran into talking dragons on their little adventure.

 

Another point to consider, when designing an adventure, as hinted at above by Pizza Man, consider why the PC's would get involved in the caper by the antagonists. Specifically, are the PC's full fledged superheroes who will stop any crime? Or are they a bunch of super-powered teenagers who would rather be left alone? In the first instance they will go to the adventure. In the second, the adventure has to come to them.

 

The last point I'd recommend is to make it personal to the PC's. Give them personal connections to the adventure somehow. Maybe they know the victim of the crime. Or they suspect that one of their Dependent NPC's is involved somehow. Or the building that just got destroyed is in name of one of the PC's. Etc etc. Small connections help build players (and PC's) interest in the adventure, which helps lure them in.

 

Superhero stories also can take a bit of time to setup, moreso than D&D games (in my experience). Once the party forms in D&D games, they can go find a dungeon to raid or some monsters to kill and allow the campaign to grow from that. While the same formula can work with superheroes, it can just as often take longer to do the initial setup (introducing significant NPC's such as a mayor or police chief for instance, relationships between the PC's and other authorities, reasons for villains to do the things they do, etc etc). You might consider just running a game or two pitting the PC's against random villains with no connection, with some 'downtime' between adventures to help set up these sorts of relationships and start to build the world around the campaign.

[yukonhorror]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

Haven't had a chance to peruse all you said, but THANKS! As per the Sci-Fi, I am all about adaptation, but didn't think realize the nice parallelism between sci-fi and superheroic.

 

As per pizza man, again, perused. Didn't read. But will. That is the kind of thing I was thinking as an alternative. A how-to for building an adventure.

 

My main issue is scale regarding super-heroes versus fantasy. I can whip up a bring down the evil cult of the undead god kind of dungeon crawl with no issues. But it seems like that scales only so far, and super-heroes can just whip through that no problem.

[Doc Democracy]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

My problem was always the big bad guy. It is difficult to get the balance right for a villain that can take on the whole group and yet be vulnerable to them enough to be taken down at the end of the day. It is also difficult to avoid taking people out of the fight too early and have them sitting on the sidelines through the final battle. Very unsatisfying for a player.

 

Ultimately it came down to judicious use of damage reduction rather than defences, those defences that I did use being ablative and having things that the heroes could do to provide themselves with advantages in the fight (added defence or offence always helps). I also tended to spread the big bad guys attacks to ensure they hit (with less damage) than go for the full damage effect right away.

 

Doc

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

 

My main issue is scale regarding super-heroes versus fantasy. I can whip up a bring down the evil cult of the undead god kind of dungeon crawl with no issues. But it seems like that scales only so far, and super-heroes can just whip through that no problem.

 

First off let me second everything Lord Liaden said - you should check it out.

 

If you are comfortable using the undead cult as a starting point, go with it. To make it work better in a superhero campaign consider the following:

 

1. The individual cultists need to be a credible threat to the supers. Either start with a low-level campaign so that the heroes can be challenged by highly skilled/well-equipped foes, or make the cultists magically enhanced so that they are borderline superhuman themselves.

 

2. In the modern world, evil magical cultists will still probably have cell phones, cars, and firearms. Maybe magically enhanced ones, but they aren't coming out of Amish country.

 

3. In most settings, the cultists aren't running the government, or if they are it is secretly. They have to protect their Secret ID's just like the heroes. Use this to let the heroes interact with cultists while everyone is playing the civilian - it will make for richer confrontations later on.

 

4. Comic book organizations tend to have a lot more layers than fantasy ones, and part of the fun is peeling back each layer and seeing what is underneath.

 

5. One major difference between swords and sorcery fantasy and comic book superheroes is that the latter have no moral authority to mete out capital punishment. The cultists may use this to bait the heroes, and the heroes may have to deal with the consequences of killing them. How you want to handle that may depend on the tone and such, but it is something to consider.

[Christopher]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

2. In the modern world' date=' evil magical cultists will still probably have cell phones, cars, and firearms. Maybe magically enhanced ones, but they aren't coming out of Amish country.[/quote']

One thing about Firearms: Better don't use the ones from 6E2. Just build Multipowers with charges. That is they way it is done in Champions 6E with them.

 

The pre-build weapons are good for Heroic level campaigns, but they can cause balance issues in Superheroic. Their active points are possibily to high and that makes "bounce bullets of your chest" brick types near impossible.

[Ockham's Spoon]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

One thing about Firearms: Better don't use the ones from 6E2. Just build Multipowers with charges. That is they way it is done in Champions 6E with them.

 

The pre-build weapons are good for Heroic level campaigns, but they can cause balance issues in Superheroic. Their active points are possibily to high and that makes "bounce bullets of your chest" brick types near impossible.

 

That is a good point. But it depends on the level of the campaign as to whether that is a problem or not. If you want your heroes to bounce bullets, either let them buy their defenses up or tone down the weapons. But if you don't want the heroes ignoring the average thug because he isn't a credible threat, then let him have that high-powered weapon.

 

For a specific exampe (one I remember) in the 5e Hero Equipment Guide, a taser is built as a 8d6 NND attack. That is 80 active points which is pretty hefty for something a little old lady might have in her purse (whether she can hit with it is another issue). In a low-powered game, some of the heroes might be asking themselves why they don't carry a taser themselves. That is something the GM and players are going to have to hash out before they start playing. Maybe tone down the taser (a 4d6 NND is probably enough to stun most people with one hit; repeated hits could knock them out), maybe introduce legislation in the campaign that discourages their use, maybe let the heroes have an equipment Multipower with taser, hand cuffs, and walkie-talkie. As long as everyone is on the same page when you start.

[Christopher]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

That is a good point. But it depends on the level of the campaign as to whether that is a problem or not. If you want your heroes to bounce bullets, either let them buy their defenses up or tone down the weapons. But if you don't want the heroes ignoring the average thug because he isn't a credible threat, then let him have that high-powered weapon.

 

For a specific exampe (one I remember) in the 5e Hero Equipment Guide, a taser is built as a 8d6 NND attack. That is 80 active points which is pretty hefty for something a little old lady might have in her purse (whether she can hit with it is another issue). In a low-powered game, some of the heroes might be asking themselves why they don't carry a taser themselves. That is something the GM and players are going to have to hash out before they start playing. Maybe tone down the taser (a 4d6 NND is probably enough to stun most people with one hit; repeated hits could knock them out), maybe introduce legislation in the campaign that discourages their use, maybe let the heroes have an equipment Multipower with taser, hand cuffs, and walkie-talkie. As long as everyone is on the same page when you start.

The problem is mostly that she should not have a attack of that DC-Level in the first place (unless this old lady is build on 175 points or more). A Taser only has to disable a normal person, but may simply fail against any super with cheap armored spandex (just as in Batman Begins, with the taser).

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: need more than plot hooks!

 

Meta Plots - Campaign Setting Background. Champions Universe, Millennium City, or your own Home Town. Spot light a specific Organization or Master Villain and select a Goal. Then structure your adventures to lead to their Goals. He must be stopped.

 

Sub Plots - DNPC's and Hunted's belonging to all the Characters. Involve them in every third of fourth session at least. Captured Mystic or Super-Tech items. Inventors and Gadgeteers want to use them or research and develop them or borrow them. Let them, but add Charges (Unique) or have the Owner hunt them and it down. (ie; the Device or McGuffin emits a traceable signal that the Bad Guys use to find the Hero and take back their item.

 

Character Plots - What drive the Superhero and then tailor adventures to their goals. If a Superhero is a Dark Knight then create a few adventures for that character.

 

Loose Threads - The Why's of the Bad Guys can provide you with one shot adventures and maybe even Team Ups with the Supervillain. The Enemy of my Enemy is my Ally (Watch them closely however)

 

 

More later

 

 

QM