Please critique/upgrade/enhance my plot?

[Stelknecht]

Basic plot:

Superheros are new. 

25 years ago, big event, lots of death, nuclear powered corpses of lincoln, etc, no long term effects besides relocating new york city.

Now, our heroes are the first superheroes; but not the first supervillains. 

 

Citytopia news reports many heists and robberies of pharma providers! - Hook 1

Players who investigate will find many robberies committed by a gang in the dockside area.

Citytopia streets run red with rage! Many drivers getting angrier than ever before! Lives lots, property damaged! - Hook 2

Players may encounter a road rage driver; clues will lead to a gang in the dockside area.

 

Players go to gang's abandonned warehouse. Scout it out? Charge in? All about the same; 20 human gang members, 3 new villain members, driving the poisoning of the city's drivers, by direct injection, or wiping contact poison on the driver's side door handle. 

 

Clues provided by searching the warehouse or interrogating the supervillains; A small tactical team was outfitted in the warehouse and are heading to the nuclear plant to hold it for ransom. The poisoning is to distract the capes/cops.

 

Follow up on the nuke plant lead now? Catch the terrorists before they have hostages.

Wait? Find out from the news that the terrorists are at the nuke plant. Have to free hostages from terrorists in good positions and well prepared. 

 

Endgame; Nuclear control room. Fight 1 powerful superbaddie, and his 6 backup terrorists (basic agent types with guns) and don't lose any hostages.

 

Any thoughts? Hoping to try this on some new superhero gamers. I'm thinking I need more ways for them to make choices, or I'll get booed for railroading, although in my experience, the superhero (at least the 4 color sort) games tend to be railroads anyhow; what good guy is going to go "Naw, I think I'll sleep in while La Cucaracha destroys the city". 

Anyhow, whatever feedback offered would be appreciated.

 

 

[Cassandra]

 

Basic plot:

Superheros are new. 

25 years ago, big event, lots of death, nuclear powered corpses of lincoln, etc, no long term effects besides relocating new york city.

Now, our heroes are the first superheroes; but not the first supervillains. 

 

Citytopia news reports many heists and robberies of pharma providers! - Hook 1

Players who investigate will find many robberies committed by a gang in the dockside area.

Citytopia streets run red with rage! Many drivers getting angrier than ever before! Lives lots, property damaged! - Hook 2

Players may encounter a road rage driver; clues will lead to a gang in the dockside area.

 

Players go to gang's abandonned warehouse. Scout it out? Charge in? All about the same; 20 human gang members, 3 new villain members, driving the poisoning of the city's drivers, by direct injection, or wiping contact poison on the driver's side door handle. 

 

Clues provided by searching the warehouse or interrogating the supervillains; A small tactical team was outfitted in the warehouse and are heading to the nuclear plant to hold it for ransom. The poisoning is to distract the capes/cops.

 

Follow up on the nuke plant lead now? Catch the terrorists before they have hostages.

Wait? Find out from the news that the terrorists are at the nuke plant. Have to free hostages from terrorists in good positions and well prepared. 

 

Endgame; Nuclear control room. Fight 1 powerful superbaddie, and his 6 backup terrorists (basic agent types with guns) and don't lose any hostages.

 

Any thoughts? Hoping to try this on some new superhero gamers. I'm thinking I need more ways for them to make choices, or I'll get booed for railroading, although in my experience, the superhero (at least the 4 color sort) games tend to be railroads anyhow; what good guy is going to go "Naw, I think I'll sleep in while La Cucaracha destroys the city". 

Anyhow, whatever feedback offered would be appreciated.

 

 

First, Just say people with Superpowers exist.  No need for extensive backstory until you can use the origin in an adventure.  This scenario would be a good way for various types of superheroes and crime fighters to come together and form a team.  For the purposes of this Superheroes are those with powers along the lines of Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Iron Man, or Thor.  Crime Fighters are those who sneak around and use weapons like Batman, Black Widow, Green Arrow, or Huntress.

 

Second, First Hook: Team members (Crime Fighter Types) on patrol stop a robbery of a warehouse.  Suggest change to Starbucks like coffee shop warehouse.  Thieves exhibit near superhuman strength and rage resulting in them getting away by either defeating the heroes or putting innocents in peril forcing the heroes to let them escape.  Clue found at fight lead to hideout.

 

Third, Second Hook: Team members (Superhero Types) on patrol respond to news reports of road rage in certain part of city, and have to act quickly to contain the threat of near superhuman strength rage filled drivers.  During fight notice a number of people filming the rage filled drivers not fleeing with other civilians.  Heroes save one from out of control car, and the would be victim takes off, but leaves a clue to the hideout.  After using powers to stop road rage drivers Heroes notice all had Starbucks like coffee stop drinks in cars. 

 

Fourth, Superheroes and Crime Fighters both arrive at the Hideout at the same time.  The Thieves and those that filmed the road rage are listening to orders given by a Costumed villain, with two other costume people at his side.  If the Crime Fighters arrive first they have sneaked in and hear the Costumed villain talk about phase one, only to have his speech interrupted when the Superheroes arrive. 

 

Fourth, Fight breaks out.  Superheroes and Crime Fighters work together against large number of near superstrong rage filled individuals while three villains manage to get away.  In the fight clues are left to next step in villain plan.

 

Fifth, Superheroes and Crime Fighters go in pursuit of villains.  Plan is to blackmail city and Starbucks like coffee shop into paying Villains or watch everyone who drinks coffee turned into near superhumanly strong rage filled maniacs. 

 

The final show down can go a few ways. 

 

The three villains use an army of innocent civilians exposed to the tainted coffee to attack the heroes and overwhelm them.  Then the Team is put into a death trap (boiling hot coffee about to be poured down on them, for example) while each of them has been rendered powerless.  Only by using their combined abilities can the escape.

 

After this it can be a straight up fight with the Three Villains, but a few more to even out the fight to prevent the city from being turned into a battleground.

 

Hope this helps.

[phydaux]

Plot outline as written by OP sounds more like a Dark Champions plot - Low level street crime.  More Daredevil & Black Widow than Thor and Iron Man.  Cassandra takes it up a notch to true Supers level.

 

Faulty version of the Super Soldier Serum which are both HIGHLY addictive and have MASSIVE physical & psychological side effects are a classic supers trope, and IMO every supers world needs 3-4 variants.

 

Trapping the heroes in a giant coffee pot to have them peculated to death is very DC Silver Age.  The GM will need to decide if he's running a Silver Age campaign or not.   I usually don't like silver age gimmicks, but damn if I just can't get the image of Adam West & Burt Ward, tied up and trying to escape from a giant coffee pot, out of my head.

 

"Holy Donuts, Batman!"

 

"Yes, that was quite the coffee conundrum. old chum.  Fortunately I always carry an extra large Bat-Coffee Filter in my Utility Belt."

 

"That would be a Vinti Coffee Filter, Batman."

 

"Shut up, Bert."

[Stelknecht]

First, Just say people with Superpowers exist.  No need for extensive backstory until you can use the origin in an adventure.  This scenario would be a good way for various types of superheroes and crime fighters to come together and form a team.  For the purposes of this Superheroes are those with powers along the lines of Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Iron Man, or Thor.  Crime Fighters are those who sneak around and use weapons like Batman, Black Widow, Green Arrow, or Huntress.

 

Fair enough, but there ought to be some semi-logical reason they came about, and a vague explosion 25 years ago sounds pretty loose. in general, they're all superheros, from your breakdown. Well, except for one, and he's going to have to be led, because he admires batman, but doesn't like to think in games; he's a caster who charges melee frequently. In any case, that's the idea; several isolated incidents (a road rager trying to ram a bus full of nuns, fr'instance) attracts the player, who then makes his/her supehero debut. I do want to make this the first of the supers, so that the players can set the flavor of the campaign; it may end up being dark champions, or 4 color supheroics. 

 

Second, First Hook: Team members (Crime Fighter Types) on patrol stop a robbery of a warehouse.  Suggest change to Starbucks like coffee shop warehouse.  Thieves exhibit near superhuman strength and rage resulting in them getting away by either defeating the heroes or putting innocents in peril forcing the heroes to let them escape.  Clue found at fight lead to hideout.

 

I'm sensing some hate for Starbucks here. Although, really, that's probably just a good idea because vastly wider distribution. I love the innocents in peril letting them escape; that's a lovely cliche that always sets the flavor. 

 

Third, Second Hook: Team members (Superhero Types) on patrol respond to news reports of road rage in certain part of city, and have to act quickly to contain the threat of near superhuman strength rage filled drivers.  During fight notice a number of people filming the rage filled drivers not fleeing with other civilians.  Heroes save one from out of control car, and the would be victim takes off, but leaves a clue to the hideout.  After using powers to stop road rage drivers Heroes notice all had Starbucks like coffee stop drinks in cars. 

 

I'd intended this sort of thing to start them off; they're all new to superehero games, and stopping one speeding rage rider should be straightforward enough to be simple. 

 

Fourth, Superheroes and Crime Fighters both arrive at the Hideout at the same time.  The Thieves and those that filmed the road rage are listening to orders given by a Costumed villain, with two other costume people at his side.  If the Crime Fighters arrive first they have sneaked in and hear the Costumed villain talk about phase one, only to have his speech interrupted when the Superheroes arrive. 

 

Fourth, Fight breaks out.  Superheroes and Crime Fighters work together against large number of near superstrong rage filled individuals while three villains manage to get away.  In the fight clues are left to next step in villain plan.

 

Fifth, Superheroes and Crime Fighters go in pursuit of villains.  Plan is to blackmail city and Starbucks like coffee shop into paying Villains or watch everyone who drinks coffee turned into near superhumanly strong rage filled maniacs. 

 

The final show down can go a few ways. 

 

The three villains use an army of innocent civilians exposed to the tainted coffee to attack the heroes and overwhelm them.  Then the Team is put into a death trap (boiling hot coffee about to be poured down on them, for example) while each of them has been rendered powerless.  Only by using their combined abilities can the escape.

 

After this it can be a straight up fight with the Three Villains, but a few more to even out the fight to prevent the city from being turned into a battleground.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Some comments and thoughts in italics there; have to go to work, but I'll pick up after work. Thanks so much for the help!

[freakboy6117]

one simple change don't use a warehouse use a car wash where better to literally douse a car with psychoactive chemicals. regular chemical deliveries weird smells aren't odd. you can put a hidden lab under the car wash or in a maintenance building.

 

for clues depending on your heroes either car wax residue at the chemical robberies receipts  for the car wash in road rager cars or blood analysis revealing car chemicals as well as psychotropics in the victims blood stream.

 

the Nuke thing is a bit excessive and doesn't fit the theme.

 

Wouldn't it be easier to tie the plots together instead of the road rage attacks being a distraction why not a test run for a more powerful version of the drug. when the heroes bust up the Lab they find that a truck containing the rage formula has already left for a staging location a secondary test site where the drug will be used on a smallish crowd [subway, movie theater, walmart] both as a final test and as the public demonstration for the ransom demand.

 

 the heroes arrive just seconds to late for the test and suddenly there is chaos the heroes are forced to give up the chase to stop the Innocent citizens from rampaging. the aster villain delivers his ultimatum to the city pay me 100 MILLLLLLLLION dollars or i detonate a rage bomb over the annual friendship and brother hood parade.

 

now its a race against time to discover the location of the bomb or bombs and track down the master villain before madness descends on the city. 

 

its kind of a silver age plot but if you want to mix it up you can either ditch the ransom part its purely a terrorist attack or the silver age villain shtick is actually a ruse the rage gas is being developed as a weapon for third world dictators and will be sold at a black market auction to the highest bidder.

 

so in your next arc your heroes discover the master villain they thought they had defeated is really just a henchman and the heroes have to track down and break up the auction and defeat the true master plus the super powered muscle of the black-market bidders to end the threat.

[BoloOfEarth]

It's hard to provide specifics without knowing details of the PC heroes, so I'll talk in general here, building on Cassandra's and Freakboy's excellent ideas.

 

Are the heroes starting as already together, or are you using this adventure to bring them together?  If the latter, I would involve them singly or in pairs with various initial plot elements, with ways to bring them together.

 

Also, if any of the heroes has mental powers you'll want to put some serious thought into how you're going to keep them from uncovering the whole plot with simple Telepathy.  If so, gang members should be kept in the dark as much as possible.  Or maybe the special "rage-roid" formula the gang members use also seriously messes with short-term memory, especially the direct injection kind the gang members use to take on the superheroes.

e.g.  Fight at warehouse (involving heroes A & B ) intro's the gang, and the heroes find a curious list of license plate numbers and dates on one of the gang members.  (These are cars which went through the car wash on those dates, but that definitely shouldn't be obvious.)  The warehouse might be for a large auto supply company and includes (among auto parts and such) the soaps and waxes for automated car washes.  Maybe the gang wasn't robbing the place, but rather replacing the normal car wash stuff with their special brew, to get a wider distribution before the mastermind's ransom demand.

 

Heroes C & D are investigating the road rage incidents and run into heroes A & B who are tracking the list of license plates.  Perhaps it's not all road rage; maybe an affected person goes nuts at work or at home.  (Some of these can have already happened, with the person not knowing why they went after the boss with a computer keyboard.)  Also, don't make it just the owner of the car affected; maybe daddy lent the car to his son or daughter after getting it washed.  Heroes E & F might deal with a non-road-rage incident by a teen who's using an affected car, allowing them to also connect with the other heroes.

 

Also, be aware if any of the heroes touch any of the affected cars.  (If, for example, Hero D grabs a road-rage driver's car to keep it from plowing into that bus full of nuns, getting some of the car wax on him.)  Some heroes having to restrain one of their own is another genre trope, though don't make it a given that the PC is instantly, fully affected.  Describe to the player how angry his character is getting and allow EGO rolls to keep from ripping someone's arm off and beating them with the bloody stump.  And another hero's powers might melt / wash / knock the rage-wax away, helping the hero come back to his senses.

 

If going the coffee route instead of the car wash route, the warehouse thing could be the gang members replacing normal cups with ones whose insides are treated with the rage chemicals.  The license plates are people who went through the coffee place's drive-through, and the boss wants to track the effectiveness.  A road-raging civilian might throw his hot coffee in the hero's face, inducing that hero into a rage.  Etc.

[BoloOfEarth]

Personally, I wouldn't have the road-rage stuff be just a distraction from the main plot, but something that assists in it but isn't the main point.

 

RE: the nuke plant, the idea could be to replace the plant's coffee or spray the rage chemicals in the ductwork, causing the guards and power plant workers to go psycho on each other, with the bad guys waiting to swoop in and take over in the chaos.  Sure, some of the hostages are super-strong rage machines, but they can be turned on each other or the heroes or the cops.

[segerge]

Variation on the rage-machines-at-the-nuclear-powerplant idea:

 

The villains go on the air after the rage chemical is introduced at the powerplant, and they point out that even low-powered supers would be enough to breach the containment vessel and send a cloud of radioactive steam/debris over Campaign City.  The villains just happen to have the antidote for the rage chemical, which they will be happy to administer within the powerplant for a $1 billion payment...