When Worlds Collide: ideas for universe crossovers

[Seraphim]

I would like to hear ideas for crossing over my universes superheroes with heroes from other universes?

[Monolith]

One way to get some of the Champions Universe heroes and villains into your game would be to have Nebula's Imprisonment power functioning incorrectly. So instead of sending the targets to Duress she is sending them to your world. Something like that would give you a fairly interesing supply of CU characters without needing to worry about any cosmic consequences.

[Seraphim]

Thats a good idea. Also isnt there a portal or nexus in the everglades somewhere, chamipions universe, cant remember right now havent got my book on me will check though.

[Monolith]

There is a dimensional nexus "weak point" in Sunday Pond, Maine; the home of The Witness. I do not remember there being one mentioned for Vibora Bay, but my guess is there would be one there too.

[Seraphim]

Sunday Pond thats what I meant in the back of my head i was thinking about the nexus of worlds in marvel where man-thing comes from which was the everglades.

[RPMiller]

<shamlessplug>

You could have characters from the world of San Angelo enter your world through a singularity that manifested itself, or a dimensional rift that opened due to the proximity of the singularity to a leyline, or...

</shamlessplug>

[Lord Liaden]

Aaron Allston came up with a dandy multidimensional campaign premise in his Strike Force book:

 

A master villain discovers dimension-crossing technology that can project people into alternate Earths. He sends some of his followers into another Earth (or more than one) to learn about it. He then dresses up supervillains in his employ to resemble the heroes of that other Earth and has them commit violent crimes on his own world. Finally he ambushes the real heroes of that other world and projects them to his Earth, where they are believed to be the dangerous supervillains and attacked by the heroes of this world. Eventually that other world will be depopulated of heroes, leaving it ripe for him to plunder. If you don't want the PCs to learn what's going on too quickly, as each group of heroes is defeated the master villain can transport the now-helpless supers to a specially prepared prison in another world.

 

This can be applied to as many Earths as the GM desires and has characters for; each world would defeat the heroes from "the next world over," resulting in a string of Earths vulnerable to the master villain.

[Seraphim]

re: San Angelo

 

I dont know much about San Angelo.

 

I have had a glimpse of the site and couldnt really make head nor tails of it. Is it a Hero System book or can it be used as one. Would like some more info if possible.

[RPMiller]

Re: re: San Angelo

 

Originally posted by Seraphim

I dont know much about San Angelo.

 

I have had a glimpse of the site and couldnt really make head nor tails of it. Is it a Hero System book or can it be used as one. Would like some more info if possible.

Let's try this again...

 

San Angelo was the first book of its kind for Champions. It was a complete city created and written from the perspective of the inhabitants of that city. Many people have equated it to Astro City if you are at all familiar with the comic series.

 

There are a lot of NPCs and "normal" elements of the city in the book, but everything is also related to the supers that reside there as well.

 

The feeling that I got when I first picked up the book was that it was "real". The city was alive and the supers would have to keep that in mind as they went about their "supering".

 

I am currently working on the second edition of the book. The first has a time line that goes way back to the early Spanish settlements and takes you through 1997. The work I'm doing currently will be updating everything to 2004, and believe me, a lot has changed. Just like our own world in the last 7 years, but imagine our world with supers, that is the world that San Angelo is a part of.

 

There are other books in development for different elements and neighborhoods in the city, and we have a couple other cities in development as well as some foreign country settings.

 

Anyway, I don't want to hijack your thread so I'll stop there. Please feel free to ask more questions or visit the links in my signature to get in on the discussions regarding the new books.

[Hermit]

You might consider it cliche', but in the comics anything doing with vibrations is another good way to shift someone over, especially if things didn't go as planned. If, for example, Kinetik of the Champions were racing at super speed and started to hit the soundbarrier just as he was hit by ARGENT's new experimental Vibratory Disruptor... it might interact, and drop him in another dimension (hey, it's how comic book science works).

 

In Champions 3-D, one suggested cause was a "Foil" who the PCs of one world ended up chasing from dimension to dimension.

[Ghost who Walks]

One of my PCs (teen genius Doc Smash) invented a 'dimensional conveyor'. It allowed ones conciousness to go to another dimension, where you inhabited the body of your genetic double. The doubles mind was sent back to the originals body (Yes I stold the idea from Quantum Leap)

 

He used it to explore several worlds, running into all kinds of trouble that his doubles were involved in.

 

Later, the rest of the players got involved when another dimension invented the exact same technology and used it to infiltrate our Dimension. The infiltrators were of course from a world where the Axis one WWII (you know how many NAzi villains HERO games has published?)

 

Plot Complication: in addition to the PCs world, another world had discovered the same technology. This was one where the Confederacy won the Civil war, and survived to become a technological powerhouse. When several of their heroes got replaced by these Axis infiltrators, they began their own program to find who was responsible. (and of course suspected the players world)

 

Several NPC heroes were taken over by their counterparts, and began behaving very strangely. The President himself was taken over, and the US military superheroes began plotting his assassination.

 

Most of the PCs volunteered to transfer their conciousnesses to the other world, to stop the sinister invasion. The doubles they switched into had different lives, some had different powers. (or no powers, in a couple of cases)

 

In the end battle, Doc Smash finds out that it was his Nazi double, 'Herr Doktor' who had invented the technology on Axis world. Herr Doktor had done it in the hope that he could get someone who would cure him from his terminal illness. (Which Doc Smash had overcome in childhood). Doc Smash managed to convince Herr Doktor of the evil that his technology was doing, and Herr doktor vowed to destroy the technology and take his own life in remorse.

 

It will probably get another scenario at some point, alternate worlds are a lot of fun.

 

Sourcebooks I used were GURPS Alternate Earths and Champions 3D.

 

The nice thing about doing it this way, is it leaves behind little evidence to the general public that the invasion occured.

[Badger]

Confederate superheros?

 

What were their names.

[Seraphim]

quite interested in confederate superhero names also

[Crimson Arrow]

There are lots of possibilities, depending (in part), on the tone of your campaign. The classic JLA/JSA cross-overs utilised all sorts of plot devices to get the heroes of two Earths meeting up.

 

A super-powerful entity wants to hold a contest. Heroes, villains or even a mix of the two are pitted against each other. This is the "Grandmaster" plotline, the origin of the Avengers/Squadron Sinister clashes from the 70s. The entity has power to bring the characters together through magic, technology or innate abilities. This could just be for his/her amusement, or he might have a bet with another powerful being. Maybe by winning, the heroes are condemning a world.

 

Aaron Allston's idea (mentioned by Lord Liaden) is a good one. You could even extract elements from that plot. Perhaps the villains keep losing to the heroes of their Earth, so they try their hand at a new one, perhaps they can study our Earth's heroes and know more about them than they would about their own personal nemeses. The good guys lose until the heroes from Earth 2 (for want of a better term) find out and cross too. Both teams of heroes can round up the evil-doers. This was done in the JLA/JSA cross-over era.

 

Another one you can extract is to depopulate Earth 1 of heroes. Your PCs wonder where the other heroes are going. Crime is up, of course, but then villains vanish too (Earth 2's villains don't want all the loot stolen before they get there) or alternatively, perhaps the Earth 1 villains claim to be have been robbed of their (well, it was theirs after they stole it) ill-gotten gains.

 

Perhaps some cosmic event is bringing two universes together. If something isn't done the two universes will merge. This might not be fatal (you could end up with a brand new universe, like after the "Crisis on Infinite Earths"), or both worlds might vanish entirely. Perhaps one is an anti-matter universe and technology can be used to convert the Earth 1 heroes to anti-matter so they can help out the ones on Earth 2.

 

Perhaps the universes are coming into alignment because of common events. Perhaps the order of the universes is such that a cataclysm will occur unless the heroes take steps to deal with it. This is potentially a JLA level plotline. Maybe the heroes have to destroy a universe to prevent the alignment. Is it devoid of life? If not, will the heroes refuse to kill, or will they try and more the lifefroms to a new homes?

 

What if the heroes receive a visitor from another world? This one has fallen under a dictatorship after a charismatic leader took charge of the US. The thing is that the same person is running for the Presidency in Earth 1. You can play this all sorts of ways.

 

Go "Dead Zone" and consider assassinating him (not heroic, but it might suit the PCs), campaign against him (maybe one of the heroes could run, or they can assist the opponent, who is not looking too good in the polls - ignore how politics really works, if your campaign is four-colour enough), or perhaps expose the potential dictator's real plans, spoiling his campaign. Armed with knowledge from the alternate world and the help of its remaining good guys (or guy, even), maybe the heroes of Earth 1 can prevent disaster from striking twice. They might also end up with a bitter and powerful new enemy.

[Ghost who Walks]

Confederate Superheroes:

1) Dueling Duck (Expatriate Russian Telepath)

2) Dancing Duck (Telepath, daughter of Dueling Duck)

3) Captain Stars and Bars (Wolverine like regerator/Captain Americ type. From the swamps of Florida, unable to be understood by anyone north of Virginia)

4) Rebelette

http://www.rebelette.com/

Rebelette's homepage

5) Robert Johnson Andrews (Brick with around 80 strength, immortal who fought in the civil war, helped win the battle of Gettysburg: reason why history changed)

6. The Fightin' Cherokee: (Brick, strongest man on Earth)

7. The Flyin' Cherokee (Cousin of the Fightin' Cherokee, she can fly into orbit)

8. Rebel Yell (Original GURPS Supers): Mississippian with sonic powers, drives around in a dodge car and dispenses Justice...Southron style.

 

 

Notes:

1) Together, their team name was the "Southern Knights", a homage to a 1980's comic book that ran about 50 issues. (at one point they had a crossover with the champions comic book).

2) The Cherokee Nation and the Indian territory(Oklahoma today) sided with the Confederacy during the Civil war.

3) Most of the Confederate Heroes hung out in aTlanta, which was like the Northern New York (so far as heroes were concerned.)

4) There were big cultural differences between the heroes. The Confederate Heroes stood for personal honor, family, and the Almighty Bible. They helped people through varios social programs, churches, disaster relief, and acting as front line symbols for the military. The Northern heroes either endorsed commercial products, or were on military "Special Op" teams. Both sides had a lot of spies and espionage against each other (Like East and West Germany, during the Cold War)

[BishopofB&W]

Originally posted by Ghost who Walks

4) Rebelette

http://www.rebelette.com/

Rebelette's homepage

 

YOWZA!

[Seraphim]

after seeing rebelette i suddenly wantto do a civil war hero game with her in

[Kristopher]

Rebelette

 

Holy buttfloss!

[FlyBoy]

Re: When Worlds Collide: ideas for universe crossovers

 

Originally posted by Seraphim

I would like to hear ideas for crossing over my universes superheroes with heroes from other universes?

You could have an adventure where Istvatha Vhan attacks earth, the PCs could follow her back to her dimension, and she could blink them to another universe.

Alternately, she could have done the same to another superhero team...

[Space Cadet]

A couple of nights back, I had the opportunity to check out a

website that provided background info for a Victorian-age

superhero campaign; specifically, for GURPS Supers. With

a little bit of tweaking, though, it could be adapted for FREd.

Just imagine the looks on your players' faces if you were to

bring them face-to-face with Jack the Ripper -- a Ripper with

superpowers (Brrrrrrr!).

 

Scary thought, isn't it?

 

Space Cadet

[Mark Rand]

Re: When Worlds Collide: ideas for universe crossovers

 

I got a wild idea yesterday. The Avengers, from Marvel, in the San Angelo universe. We also bring in PRIMUS, UNTIL, VIPER, and DEMON from the CU. Additionally, a female Waterdeep City Guard, from D&D, crossed into the game world and is currently an Avengers reservist. Other crossovers are pending. Some will be very important, some will be slightly important, some won't be important at all, and some are only of historical value.

[robbneu]

Re: When Worlds Collide: ideas for universe crossovers

 

I'll try to explain this as briefly as possible as it was a little complicated, but... bottom line was... I had an extra-dimensional version of my PC's team suck them into their dimension to help them battle a "Old God" that basically ate dimensions. Since the other dimension's timeline was slightly accelerated, the other team of heroes was about eight to ten years older, so the other team had one of the hero's children on the team and acting a hero, possible glimpses into the futures of some of the other heroes, etc. It was pretty cool and worked out really well. Of course, the main team's dimension was next on the Old God's list of realities to destroy... so that gave the PCs a little initiative in dealing with the disaster.

 

Robb

[RPMiller]

Re: When Worlds Collide: ideas for universe crossovers

 

I got a wild idea yesterday. The Avengers' date=' from Marvel, in the San Angelo universe. We also bring in PRIMUS, UNTIL, VIPER, and DEMON from the CU. Additionally, a female Waterdeep City Guard, from D&D, crossed into the game world and is currently an Avengers reservist. Other crossovers are pending. Some will be very important, some will be slightly important, some won't be important at all, and some are only of historical value.[/quote']

What? You are using SA??? REP for you!! Rep for anyone that talks about their SA use!

[RPMiller]

Re: When Worlds Collide: ideas for universe crossovers

 

I'll try to explain this as briefly as possible as it was a little complicated, but... bottom line was... I had an extra-dimensional version of my PC's team suck them into their dimension to help them battle a "Old God" that basically ate dimensions. Since the other dimension's timeline was slightly accelerated, the other team of heroes was about eight to ten years older, so the other team had one of the hero's children on the team and acting a hero, possible glimpses into the futures of some of the other heroes, etc. It was pretty cool and worked out really well. Of course, the main team's dimension was next on the Old God's list of realities to destroy... so that gave the PCs a little initiative in dealing with the disaster.

 

Robb

Cool idea! Rep for the cool idea!

[robbneu]

Re: When Worlds Collide: ideas for universe crossovers

 

Cool idea! Rep for the cool idea!

 

Hahaha... thanks. Unfortunately, the game, combined with another game I was running at the time, kind of ran out of steam. So, I shifted everything five years ahead of that particular adventure and started everything up again *after* the heroes had basically failed at stopping the Old God (as a last ditch effort, they created a dimensional barrier to seal their world away from him). It made for a terribly dark setting/campaign and it now goes through starts and stops in PBEM form.

 

http://home.earthlink.net/~robbneu/minutemen/

 

Robb