High power campaign Suggestions

[Guest Thunder]

I plan on starting a one shot mayber more game allowing my players to play high powered super hero's. My initial Idea was to allow the players creat characters that were somewhere between 750 to 1000 points and to allow the players create what ever they desire with no initial restrictions. The Idea is to give some of the newer players of champions an Idea of why there are certain restrictions on their powers. Does anybody have any suggestions or plot Ideas to kick this off to a good start. I'm hoping to be plesently surprised by the player's self restraint but I'll see....

 

As a side note if after the players turn in their characters anybody would like to assist in putting together plot ideas and possible arch nemises villains let me know

 

Thunder

 

bfrazier@bushnell.com

 

[Insaniac99]

sent you a note

[OddHat]

Kid Supernova - 2d6 Double Penetrating Uncontrolled Continuous 0 End RKA:ED, AOE: 1 Hex, Megascale, 1" = 1000 km.

 

The Singular Man: 100 levels of density increase, all or nothing, falls to center of Earth when activates power. Colapse of planet into resulting black hole optional.

 

The Running Dan: +5" Flight, Megascale, 1" = 1 light year, for extra fun don't give him life support or Astro-Navigation.

[Blue Jogger]

I had a character that had 5d6 RKA that had essentially One Hex Area Effect (it was actually +4 OCV defined as a Wide Beam). Almost nailed the martial artist that takes x2 BODY to that particular special effect.

 

After that, we decided that the +4 OCV should come from a "well aimed narrow beam" attack...

 

Rule 1:

Anything with about 8 damage classes with Area Effect will cause considerable damage to the city even if it bounces off the heroes and villians.

 

Rule 2:

Even 5 damage classes, taken to the head of a unprotected normal can be lethal.

[Chuckg]

A team of 750-1000 point characters can make Doctor Destroyer or Takofanes call for backup.

 

Heroes of this scale are obviously going to get JLA-sized challenges, JLA-sized responsibilities, and JLA-sized notoriety whether they want it or not.

 

Oh yes, and strain your creativity to make sure you mix "epic battles vs. hugely epic foes" in with "battles vs. villainous hordes" vs. "battles vs. people that the team could crush in a heartbeat in a straight fight, but are taking this long anyway because of some off-the-wall reason, preferably funny"...

 

... and never forget the single greatest DM's friend in high-power campaigns...

 

... Character-Driven Subplots.

 

Beg for story hooks in your player's origins. Shout with glee when they come up with interesting and engaging DNPC's. Encourage them to write detailed histories of their lives and their (suitably epic) roles in the world, to have friends, to have acquaintances, to have things they love and other things they feel responsible for.

 

Encourage every player to have some vague idea -- they don't have to map it all out in advance, and indeed trying to map it *all* out would be counterproductive -- but to have *some* idea of what personal journey they intend for their character to make. Because nobody starts out physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually perfect... or if they do, then you have to make the subplot 'how a perfect being copes in an imperfect world', with all the Gaiman-esque philosophy that entails.

 

Speaking of Gaiman, if you want your demigods to taste mortality for a while, don't forget the Dreaming... and Virtual Realities... and everything else.

 

And if you've gone through all that and they're still bored, then unplug their asses from the Matrix and have 'em roleplay *that*

[Insaniac99]

just like to point out, that you don't need high points to create highpowered supers, heck a team of 350 point characters could live in a tower, fight epic battles, and so on, you just scale the villians to size, and adjust the story telling to fit the setting, if they are high powered, you don't give them save the city missions, at least not later on, My PCs are bassically trainees to take over as the best team in teh world, with very little supervision, and saving the city is a cakewalk, considered a warmup, but those can quickly turn into a case of runnigninto a major baddy, or soemthing.

[Chuckg]

Actually, there is one thing -- you can scale villains to size, but you can't scale normals to size.

 

350-pointers worry if you send a well-trained platoon after them.

 

750-pointers, you need a small battalion, or else you need to pass out 16d6 blaster rifles.

[Lord Liaden]

Thunder, I'm not quite certain from your initial post as to whether you want to actually create interesting challenges for your players, or give them an object lesson on the need to create balanced characters. If the latter, you could look for exploitable gaps in their designs. Too many Vulnerabilities or Susceptibilities? Let all of them come up during play at some point. Overpowered attacks without adequate defenses? Have the PC taken out by the equivalent of an old lady with an umbrella. Too much defense without enough attack? Put the character up against someone with comparable defenses that he just can't hurt. Throw highly mobile foes against heroes without Movement Powers. Design skill-requiring scenarios if they don't bother with Skills. And so on. Personally I'd prefer to just talk with the players about balance issues during the design process, but different strokes.

 

OTOH if you want to design a fun high-powered mini-campaign, you'll want something intensely focussed for high stakes, with lots of ordnance at the command of the enemy. Some possibilities include:

 

Invasion. Aliens can mean tangling with advanced war machines, assaulting starships, and other large scale superman-vs-machine scenarios. Or the invasion can be demons or other occult threats, often better to justify powerful villainous characters that the heroes can slug it out with.

 

Environmental disaster, either natural or artificial. Tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves can challenge the mightiest of heroes. The PCs have to use their powers to prevent property damage and rescue imperiled innocents, which is a different kind of challenge (and satisfaction) from just stomping the bad guy.

 

Uber-villain. Some mastermind baddie gets his hands on the Cosmic McGuffin or other plot device for gaining epic power, and the PCs have to stop him from Ruling the World! Make sure the mastermind has or gains plenty of tough minions that the heroes have to slog through before the final confrontation.

 

One thing I've found useful for a short-term high-powered game, is to let the players build their world's "greatest heroes," who normally work solo but are forced to band together to oppose this threat to the world. The campaign premise already gives them a cause to work as a group so you don't have to justify that, and the heroes can learn to work together even as their players do. And the players get to feel like they really are "the best of the best."

 

That's the best I can offer without a clearer idea of your intent. If that doesn't help post more details and we'll try again.

[Fireg0lem]

Sent you an email with two potential nemeses.

[Patriot]

To usethem to the fullest of there ability IMO A Crisis on Infinite Earths, or zero hour scenario would be a great challenge for them

[Tom McCarthy]

I look to the JLA, JSA, LSH, Avengers, and the like for plotlines.

 

1) Time travel / save the timeline. Typically includes a time travelling villain or extradimensional conqueror (then its save reality).

 

2) Invasion / conquest. Typically aliens or alien empires, but may include extra-dimensional entities or a country capable of fielding super-powered troops or a comparable powered team.

 

3) The threat from beyond. This means a magical threat against a team with no mage, or an alien threat against a team with no easy space travel.

 

4) The enemy is us. A schism in the team (mind control, disguise and infiltration, madness, philosophical differences, evil doppelgangers, betrayal) pits one player against another.

 

5) Nemeses. The team of opposite numbers; whether evil duplicates from another dimension, or just a villain with the same/mirror origin as the hero.

 

6) The threat you can't punch. Occasionally a child or the like, but more often political harassment or media manipulation.

 

7) Flex your muscles. Gladiatorial combat against the galaxy's best.

 

We're talking widescreen action, so:

- Gods and god-like threats (Galactus, Watcher, New Gods, Crisis on Infinite Earths)

- Interstellar empires (Shi-ar empire threatened by Dark Phoenix, Kree-Skrull war)

- The android or alien with all the powers of all the heroes (Amazo, Adaptoid, Super-Skrull)

- Carnage on an unbelievable scale (Kaizen Gamora's army of super-powered shock troops on terror missions, nuclear missiles launched and must be stopped, Atlantis or aliens march on New York, rampaging Hulk)

- Histories being shaped by their actions (generational heroes that inspired them or inspired by them, sidekicks actually granted powers by them or enemies empowered by their enemies (think Loki creating Absorbing Man))

- Optionally, the team is feared by the powers that be (Authority being attacked covertly by Big Industry, governments, etc., X-men seen as public enemy, stalked by Sentinels)

 

 

 

A neat trick: Players design two characters each and give them to the GM. He hands back half of them, and says, "Pick your character. I'll use the others as villains."

[Guest Thunder]

I have discussed many times in the past the need for game balance with my current cast of players. The main purpose of this excersise is to allow the game go to the extreme and give them an actuall taiste...

 

All players don't go by the same avenue for character creation. At one time or another each in turn has come to me as the game master with a character write up that though conceptually sound has a power or combination of powers that In my opinion is a threat to game balance. I have of course discussed this with the player at the time and have come to an agreement but I wish to allow a format that will not explain to them problems with certain power levels or combinations of powers but will show them in practice why there are certain limits.

 

One thing I plan on doing is creating 350 point villians that can handle these 1000 point champions of earth. Showing them that it doesn't matter how powerful the villian is if certain restrictions aren't placed upon the creation process.

 

Though if I'm pleasently supprised by there self induced constraint. Then it may turn into a decent high powered campaign. but what I expect is for them to use the large amount of points to try and make their characters invulnurable and I want to point out the true problem with this story telling wise.

 

I guess it boils down to a lesson of game balance, showing its importance for good story telling.

[Supreme Serpent]

I think perhaps one of the most fun stories to do with these guys would be to have them face the alternate earth versions of themselves. Good for several reasons.

 

1) Just plain fun.

 

2) Lets the newer players see alternate uses of their own powers. "Hey, that's something I didn't think of! Cool!"

 

3) Shows everyone the dangers of abusive power writeups. "You mean they're going to be using the ego attack does body transdimensional on US?!?!? Dang Bob, why did you write that up?"

 

4) By having to find ways to bring "themselves" down, they can also think of ways to cover/compensate for their own weaknesses.

[Guest Thunder]

That's a darn good Idea serpent. Beautiful in it's simplicity.

I think that will be the opening scenerio as to allow for comperable oposition and to allow for imediate arch nemesis.

Thanks

 

Thunder

[Supreme Serpent]

Glad we could help, Thunder.

 

Just wanted to point out that, though I love the idea and have planned to use it myself in an upcoming game, Tom McCarthy also mentioned the idea earlier in the thread - I just elaborated on why I think this would work well. Easy to miss as its sandwiched inbetween a lot of other good ideas he had!

[Hermit]

Glad I found this thread. You see, I just started a 500 point campaign with no real Active Point Limit being enforced. For me, this is high powered. Fortunately, the players are so used to me having a more standard campaign, that they're still in awe of the power of their characters.

 

I'd like to say it's Justice Leagueish, but actually it's a pretty rogue crew. They've already defied the UN's orders to leave a civil dispute in a nation be (and good thing too, it turned out to be Eurostar's latest take over attempt). I gathered them in part via the old "Patron" motiff, a mandaarian NPC who can no longer sit idly by and watch humans hurt themselves. He won't try to rule them or anything, but he's no respect for national boundries or restrictions of that sort if it means lives will be lost. The PCs are of like mind, I suppose, boggling as it might seem, they're almost a Silver Age version of the Authority.

 

Their first mission, they took out Eurostar, and freed a small (fictional..see, I told you it was Silver Agish) Europeon Nation that had already lost many many lives (Okay, tarnished silver). The NPCs own race is "hunting him" and each of the PCs is having to deal with their own nations reactions to this.

 

They're setting up a base on an island out of the remnants of the NPCs ship.

 

The funny thing is, the defenses of the players are still a bit... weak (Compared to high power stuff) so I'm not worried about them being invincible. Still, I am thinking of giving them more EXP rewards than normal, so they can advance a bit more if they wish. Has anyone run a high powered campaign only to find out...hey, it's not high powered enough?

[zornwil]

Other suggestions which may apply are at http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9560 , I didn't see that mentioned yet in this thread so passing on.

[Hermit]

Thank you, Zornwill. That was helpful.

 

Unfortunately, it also has me thinking about something else as well. Oh my easily side tracked brain.

[zornwil]

Originally posted by Hermit

Thank you, Zornwill. That was helpful.

 

Unfortunately, it also has me thinking about something else as well. Oh my easily side tracked brain.

 

Huh, until I saw your reply I thought you had posted in that thread! I guess I kind of assume you're in every thread - in a good way. I should have realized you weren't at least by the tone from your message here.

 

You're very welcome of course.

[Theron]

Quick self-plug:

 

My article, Pointless Champions, from Digital Hero #3, discusses a number of approaches that are applicable to the high power campaign.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Theron

Quick self-plug:

 

My article, Pointless Champions, from Digital Hero #3, discusses a number of approaches that are applicable to the high power campaign.

I really need to read that. Especially since I run a "pointless" campaign. (Played in a few as well...)

I've got all the DHs, just spend too much time here, not enough time reading the important stuff.

[Theron]

Well, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way. We've had another year of playing with that style and added a couple of new players, so it's still working for us.

 

One benefit not documented showed up when my wife joined the game. She's always been a good player, but found the matter of experience points to be a bad trigger for her rather massive competitive streak. Removing EPs from the game significantly changed her playing style for the better.

 

(Also her rabid mania for HeroClix tends to get most of her competitive attention, but that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish).

[lemming]

Originally posted by Theron

Well, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot them my way. We've had another year of playing with that style and added a couple of new players, so it's still working for us.

 

One benefit not documented showed up when my wife joined the game. She's always been a good player, but found the matter of experience points to be a bad trigger for her rather massive competitive streak. Removing EPs from the game significantly changed her playing style for the better.

 

Just finished the article. Nice. I like the rewards section and will adopt something like that.

 

I think the first game that we did that was pointless was ~1986. (Actually, that's where Spectrum originated from...) And we first started doing that because of the EP competition was getting a bit out of hand. Especially in college when we were playing every day. Miss a week, miss ~50 xp (not all one character usually...)

 

Eventually all the champions games turned out that way. The only disadvantage now is that I have problems with point based games.

[Mayday]

When given extra points I usually buy more skills especially languages, so I'm curious how your group did on creation.

[Guest Thunder]

Still waiting for characters to be turned in. It seems the players didn't know what to do with so many points after playing so long with 350 and a couple of us just getting used to 350 after so many years of 250 points.

 

I've had one submission and hit him with a little tweek idea but haven't got a response yet.... Didn't deny anything on his character just made a little comment to the effect of a 60 dex being well .... wow.... didn't even say anything about the 12 speed either....

 

My point I think with this indavidual will be a good character concept lesson.