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Teen Superhero suggestions


Taliseian

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Greetings,

 

My players are interested in playing a Teen Superhero campaign - and being the good GM I'm willing to run it  :)

 

I have access to the Teen Champions supplement from 5E and I'm curious if anyone has run such a game for 6E.

 

I'm looking at keeping things on the low end - gangs, street thugs, and the occasional superpowered villain as a gang leader or mastermind.   

 

Does anyone have any suggestions as to the point limitations for such a game?

 

The 5E book lists 100 base, 100 disadvantages for a total of 200pts, characteristic maxima of 10-30, SPD 3-5, etc.

 

Thanks in advance for your suggestions....

 

 

 

T

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At that power level, from 5E to 6E you're probably seeing a loss of about 25-30 points worth of Figured Characteristics.  And you'll probably want to reduce the amount of Complications by 25 to 50 points, and move those points into the base column as well.  

 

You might try 225 total points (150 base plus 75 in Complications) and see how that works.  

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The drop in power is ok.  I'm looking to keep things low - gangs, street thugs, and rarely a full power Super Villain.

 

for example, the first set of adventures will be against some slightly juiced up Bloods/Crips with a Supervillain with the Gadgetry skill that gives a couple of them a gun...

Lightning Gun -- Blast 5d6 (25 APs); 3 Charges which Never Recover (-3 ¼), OIF Fragile (-¾)

(may work a little more on gun, but that's the general idea)

 

The thugs have an OCV/DCV of 3 and a SPD 2 with a few 15s and mostly 10s in characteristics -- 25pts in Stats, 28pts in Skills/Perks/Talents, 5pt in Powers, 60pts in Complications -- 58pts Total for the thugs.

 

Low powered, nothing really fancy -- just some thugs with a Supervillain to back them up.

 

These are kids in High School so I'm playing up the melodrama and working on adventures at the street level -- no Doctor Destroyer or Ultron here.

 

The head villain of this gang is a 200pt full on Supervillain - but they won't face him for a bit.

 

 

T

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The drop in power is ok.  I'm looking to keep things low - gangs, street thugs, and rarely a full power Super Villain.

 

for example, the first set of adventures will be against some slightly juiced up Bloods/Crips with a Supervillain with the Gadgetry skill that gives a couple of them a gun...


Lightning Gun -- Blast 5d6 (25 APs); 3 Charges which Never Recover (-3 ¼), OIF Fragile (-¾)
(may work a little more on gun, but that's the general idea)

 

The thugs have an OCV/DCV of 3 and a SPD 2 with a few 15s and mostly 10s in characteristics -- 25pts in Stats, 28pts in Skills/Perks/Talents, 5pt in Powers, 60pts in Complications -- 58pts Total for the thugs.

 

Low powered, nothing really fancy -- just some thugs with a Supervillain to back them up.

 

These are kids in High School so I'm playing up the melodrama and working on adventures at the street level -- no Doctor Destroyer or Ultron here.

 

The head villain of this gang is a 200pt full on Supervillain - but they won't face him for a bit.

 

 

T

 

How challenged do you want them to be by those thugs?

 

Should it be "If we aren't careful these gangsters might kill us!" or "If we aren't careful, we might kill one of these gangsters!"

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says either one might be challenging

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  • 4 weeks later...

The biggest difference for me when running a Teen Champions game versus a Champions game was not the point values or builds. 

 

But rather the philosophy and mindset of the PC's. 

 

Young heroes tend to be new to their powers = intentionally looser and more sloppy builds.  The Teen Hero's skill level with their powers will not be as good. 

 

 

I actually like to inject "mystery power".  This is where the player completes the character but leaves 10-30 build points unused.  The GM holds these points and they get spent in play at a dramatically suitable time.  Strong Guy is suddenly stronger.  Ice Princess in a moment of high stress suddenly shields the school bus with a Wall of Ice she didn't know she could create.   Along the line of Power Tricks but more permanent.   They also work well for that "you know I just realized my character should be able to....."  moments, allowing a forgotten idea to be incorporated without needing a complete rebuild.

EDIT:  I should note that I ALWAYS go with the players suggestions for these.   The points are theirs after all.  This is just a mechanism to allow them to buy into the story better by pulling forward some of the chargen into the actual gameplay.

 

As for mindset.  Teen games will have a lot of issues a full adult Champs game will not. 

Teens will have many friends and spend time with them. 

They will be at school in the target rich environment. 

Their Secret Identity will be harder to hide.

They can't just disappear for weeks at a time.

 

I tend to use the Academy/Private Boarding School setting a lot for the same reason movies and TV shows do.  The players will have a greater amount of autonomy if there are 10-20 staff for 100-200 students, rather than 1-2 parents to 1-3 kids. 

 

The point build level is really only going to determine how tough their powers are.  Not if it is a Teen Champions, Champions or Galactic Champions game. 

 

Decide on and clearly define the "feel" of the game with your players, and the rest will follow, points wise.

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I ... have actually had some amount of success with having the player build the base (unpowered / pre-powered) character, then give me an idea of what they'd like.  Then, with that in mind as well as watching their RP style, building their power set myself, and at several 'growth stages'.  It let me decide how effective the build was going to be (mostly starting as 'Thog smash' and basic stuff like that), as well as enabling me to make sure the team meshed, power-wise.

 

I still sort of wish I could have continued that campaign.

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