Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

[MisterVimes]

So, I just returned home from a week at Disney World and, after my triumphant return to the HERO boards, I made notes constantly regarding inspiration that I received at "the happiest place on Earth." My upcoming "Sigma" Campaign (that I left languishing two years ago in mid creation) was my primary thought, but now I want to start our usual free-for-all discussion-fest over ideas that I got and how they relate to campaign ideas in general and my Sigma Campaign in specific. Here we go.

 

MAGIC KINGDOM

• The Haunted Mansion - Mystic setting for a diversion from the usual story, HQ for a mystic cabal of heroes (or villains).
  
• Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom - This is a new interactive feature that takes you through the park to aid Merlin is thwarting mystic villains and aiding mystic heroes. The logical campaign idea is to have Merlin (or likely substitute) recruit the heroes to face down a cabal of unique mystic villains and rescue/aid mystic hero NPCs in thwarting the master plan. In Disney's case the leader of the cabal is Hades. A Champions spin on this could make an epic multi-part adventure.
  
• Monorail - Specific to my setting, I am considering changing the usual mass transit ideas to a mag-lev train that (like the monorail) has stops inside major centers (shopping, hotels, etc) instead of subway/tubeway stations.
  

 

EPCOT

• The Seas with Nemo & Friends - This ride explores the great barrier reef. This, and the recent (excellent) Aquaman series has me wondering if an entire aquatic campaign could be an "X-Men" style setting. It has elements of space adventures and alien worlds. Variations on old powers would be intriguing. Air-Blasts, Flight as Super-Swimming, Multi-Form to Sea creatures. Love some input here.
  
• Maelstrom - This is a look at Norway. What I took away from this was all the Trolls in the mythology and that triggered thoughts of the film "Troll Hunter." This could be a nice one-off adventure or a heroic level campaign setting. The Dakotas and Minnesota was heavily settled by Norwegians and the Trolls could have followed. A Western Hero campaign with a horror twist could involve troll hunting.
  
• World Showcase - Specific to my setting (but an interesting idea in general). My Sigma setting involves the complete destruction of Philadelphia. The rebuilding of the city might call for extra-national investors, but, because of the utopian feel I am looking for, there could be a requirement that the nations that invest be required to add culturally to the city. So, you get a China Town, and a Little Italy, and a Little Olympus and all will probably have local supers/gangs/criminals that fit that theme "Big Trouble in Little China" comes to mind.
  

 

ANIMAL KINGDOM

• Expedition Everest - How about a trip to Everest/Shangri-La/Shamballah? Yeti based villain or regional monster? A race/army of Yetis (Jack Kirby would have loved this idea)?
  
• Chester and Hester's Dino-Rama - This is a pastiche of corny parking-lot carnivals that is run by dinosaurs right before the extinction event. A hidden race of Humanoid Dinosaurs or a group of Recombinants created using Dino DNA.
  
• Jungle Trek - Same as above with the dinosaurs (humanoid animals) and/or a super-zoo. Intelligent Super-Animals have been used by several of us, it's an idea that may need refining.
  

 

DISNEY HOLLYWOOD STUDIOS

• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror - A dilapidated hotel that is has a portion of itself stuck in another dimension. This is a high-tech "haunted house" as parts of the hotel phases in and out of reality. I have no idea why this didn't occur to me before.
  
• Beauty and the Beast - Not unlike the "World Showcase" idea, how about a small district of the campaign city where supers/metahumans with "fairy-tale" powers have congregated (for one reason or another). This invokes ideas like the comic book "Fables" and the "Once Upon a Time" tv series.
  

 

Thoughts? Contributions?

[Escafarc]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

I once ran a Fantasy game based on the Magic Kingdom map where the main villain was an Illusionist/Ice Elementalist who's champion was a were-rat. All the attraction were different encounters. Of course we were for the most part all employees of the mouse at the time so it went pretty well.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

I once ran a Fantasy game based on the Magic Kingdom map where the main villain was an Illusionist/Ice Elementalist who's champion was a were-rat. All the attraction were different encounters. Of course we were for the most part all employees of the mouse at the time so it went pretty well.

 

I'm sure that makes for a very different perspective.

I ran a post-apocalyptic game once where "Dizkot" was believed to be a pure-human stronghold in the midst of a mutant wasteland. When the heroes got there they found a tribe that worshiped a Rat-God and were under the thumb of auto-animatronic soldiers.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

Karmakazi has a long running Convention d&d game using the pretty princesses (usually rescue fodder) as the characters...saving themselves.

But these sound fun.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

Karmakazi has a long running Convention d&d game using the pretty princesses (usually rescue fodder) as the characters...saving themselves.

But these sound fun.

 

That's pretty brilliant. I saw a lot of self-saving princesses while I was there. There is nothing as intimidating as a 6 year old Belle wielding a red lightsaber.

[Escafarc]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

[MisterVimes]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

 

It was a lot like that -- only the were shorter.

[Enforcer84]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

Look up Disney Fighter Princesses...some DevianArtist turned them into fighting game characters. It's good work.

 

back to the original post, I like the idea of a Fables style game.

[MisterVimes]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

Look up Disney Fighter Princesses...some DevianArtist turned them into fighting game characters. It's good work.

 

back to the original post, I like the idea of a Fables style game.

 

This one? http://www.paulhobson.com/wordpress/2011/06/disney-fighter-princesses/ Good stuff!

 

A Fables-Style game would be a great idea. Figuring out who your villains are would also be fun. The Evil Emperor (no spoilers) in "Fables" was not what I expected (and was brilliant) and the Evil Queen in "Once Upon a Time" is fantastic. But, you can go with the witch from Hansel and Gretel or the Evil Step-Mother (who could me a serial murderer/black widow) who is step-mom to a lot of the heroes. Rumpelstiltskin or Captain Hook would be great too. The Big Bad Wolf as an Avatar of all Evil (perhaps as a spirit form) could be a great untouchable overlord.

[Major Tom 2009]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

 

 

Consider yourself well and truly touched by the Repsaber for this one.

 

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Christopher]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

epcot

• the seas with nemo & friends - this ride explores the great barrier reef. This, and the recent (excellent) aquaman series has me wondering if an entire aquatic campaign could be an "x-men" style setting. It has elements of space adventures and alien worlds. Variations on old powers would be intriguing. Air-blasts, flight as super-swimming, multi-form to sea creatures. Love some input here.
  

Let's see what I can think of:

"Turn to water": Desolid (affected by lightning) + Invisbility

Alternate forms: Giant Octopus or whales. Sharks (they have both their smell and electrosense; Dogs of the Sea). Dolphins (fast and agile). Giant Crabs.

"El Nino": Can controll currents, especially create them. This in effect is telekinesis or ranged attacks.

Sonic powers are improved underwater, as are lightning ones. Ice powers have a lot of raw material for barriers/entangles.

Most other energy projectiosn are weaker, unless you can clear a path though the water for it.

A "Speedster" that uses Supercavitation, Cavitation. Would allow all the speedster tricks (including Teleport, Passes through space).

A diving suite could become a suiteable power armor. Perhaps for a twist the cahracter comes from deeper layers and can't survive in "the bright, low pressure enviroment" naturally. Perhaps he is a chemo-sythethic lifeform?

There is a lot of rock, mineral and volcanos down there so a lava/rockmosnter would be okay, but might be unable to run faster or swim. So it's better as a guardian (unless you give it the ability of the D&D earth elemental to move through solid rock, then it could become a speedster with desolid)

Maybe aliens from waterplanets can only survive down there.

There was soem very old game whose story was that aliens invaded earth, destroyed our orbital defenses - and then went into the ocean, because that was their habitat ("the last battle for earth will not be fought in the space, it will be fought in the sea.").

Aquanox is close to a post-apocalyptic/cyberpunk setting - in the sea. And there is this Borg-like alien species that want's to destroy humanity.

Martial Artists would use things like Tridents, Spears, harpunes. Or maybe some fritionless weapon, pehaps a lightsaber spoof: "Airblade" with a Blade of solid air....

 

That's it for now...

[concord]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

Someone say Princesses...

[MisterVimes]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

Someone say Princesses...

 

Epic. Repped.

[Christopher]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

She is not a princess, but it fits:

http://chuckleaduck.com/comic/surprise/

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom - This is a new interactive feature that takes you through the park to aid Merlin is thwarting mystic villains and aiding mystic heroes. The logical campaign idea is to have Merlin (or likely substitute) recruit the heroes to face down a cabal of unique mystic villains and rescue/aid mystic hero NPCs in thwarting the master plan. In Disney's case the leader of the cabal is Hades. A Champions spin on this could make an epic multi-part adventure.

 

The Fourth Edition Champions campaign book Mystic Masters offered a nice premise for such a campaign. The Archmage, Earth's greatest magical defender, has disappeared, and his aged and enfeebled mentor recruits a group of lesser mystic heroes to search for him, while confronting occult menaces the Archmage would have faced alone.

 

Published Champions books are loaded with magical menaces to draw from as opponents, including a variety of epic villains who could have been responsible for the Archmage's disappearance. (In Mystic Masters the major opponent was using the Archmage as the template around which to build a doomsday weapon.)

 

The Seas with Nemo & Friends - This ride explores the great barrier reef. This' date=' and the recent (excellent) Aquaman series has me wondering if an entire aquatic campaign could be an "X-Men" style setting. It has elements of space adventures and alien worlds. Variations on old powers would be intriguing. Air-Blasts, Flight as Super-Swimming, Multi-Form to Sea creatures. Love some input here.[/quote']

 

I have to say I got quite a bit of mileage back in the day out of Champions settings, organizations, and characters based beneath the oceans. The nice thing about such locations is their isolation from the surface world, making it easy for surface dwellers to "discover" them when you want to introduce them to your campaign, without radically changing the rest of your world's established history.

 

I based a number of adventures out of Atlantis from the 4E Atlantis Champs sourcebook -- richly detailed, with lots of background, NPC heroes and villains, races, creatures, magic spells and artifacts, vehicles, and maps. I threw in the high-tech underwater city of Lyonesse, and the villainous sub-mariners the Shark Squad, from Kingdom of Champions; modified versions of Aqua Industries and the Oceanus Institute from Scourge From the Deep (good for character origins); and various aquatic NPCs from other books.

 

Fifth Edition gave us a version of Atlantis explicitly inspired by the 4E one, and highly compatible with it, in Hidden Lands; but that book also introduced another major undersea civilization, the Lemurians, suitable as a major menace for a campaign. I daresay if I drew all the above material together, I could spend many months adventuring without ever breaking the surface.

 

Also note that Scourges, 4E Atlantis, and Hidden Lands all include fairly detailed guidelines and optional rules for adventuring underwater, including how the use of various Powers could be affected below the surface.

 

Maelstrom - This is a look at Norway. What I took away from this was all the Trolls in the mythology and that triggered thoughts of the film "Troll Hunter." This could be a nice one-off adventure or a heroic level campaign setting. The Dakotas and Minnesota was heavily settled by Norwegians and the Trolls could have followed. A Western Hero campaign with a horror twist could involve troll hunting.

 

If you have access to the HERO System Bestiary for Sixth Edition, it has a nice variety of trolls statted for HERO, inspired by the trolls of Scandinavian legend -- monstrous giant humanoids with intelligence and magical powers, and gifted smiths for enchanted weapons. As the default they're geared to high-level fantasy, but very easy to down- or upgrade to suit other genres.

 

When you mention Norway, horror, and Champions, I can't help but think of the conclusion to the classic Champs adventure module Wrath of the Seven Horsemen, which takes place atop a Norwegian glacier. The menaces there owe more to H.P. Lovecraft than Norse myth; OTOH the adventure introduces a number of elements with long-term reuse potential.

 

Beauty and the Beast - Not unlike the "World Showcase" idea' date=' how about a small district of the campaign city where supers/metahumans with "fairy-tale" powers have congregated (for one reason or another). This invokes ideas like the comic book "Fables" and the "Once Upon a Time" tv series. [/quote']

 

Champions introduced the concept of "The Land of Legends," a dimension created out of the collective imagination of all humanity, where all the gods, races, and monsters of myth and folklore actually exist. A dimensional nexus gate between Earth and that dimension could have formed in one part of the campaign city, allowing various supernatural creatures to visit or even emigrate. If the gate works both ways, Earthly PCs could find their way into the Land for adventures or an extended sojourn. (The Champs sourcebook The Mystic World goes into no small detail regarding the dimension's environment and inhabitants.)

 

The Shadow Queen (Champions Villains Vol. 1) makes an excellent nemesis for a fairy-tale-inspired campaign. Her style, attitudes, and power are clearly inspired by a couple of classic Disney villains, the evil Queen from Snow White, and the "dark elf" Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty.

 

I hope some of that will be of use to you.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Re: Vacation Inspiration (or how Disney gave me campaign ideas)

 

Years ago, I ran a D&D campaign using the roller coasters from Busch Gardens: Williamsburg as the main monsters. At the time, they were The Big Bad Wolf, The Loch Ness Monster, Alpengeist, and the defunct but mammoth Drakenfire. They were hording pieces of the macguffin, and they fit pretty nicely into a four element theme, too.