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Retro Styled Campaign


winterhawk

Retro Styled Campaign  

46 members have voted

  1. 1. Which Decade For A Campaign?

    • The 1940s
      12
    • The 1950s
      8
    • The 1960s
      7
    • The 1970s
      11
    • The 1980s
      8


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I'm contemplating an online campaign set in the past.  I know when I'd like to set the campaign in, but I'm curious about what the general Champions population thinks.  Rather than breaking it down by the Ages of Comics, I've instead separated the choices into decades as I think each has its own distinctive flavor.  My take in brief on each decade:

 

The 40s - Obviously dominated by World War II, a straight Golden Age campaign with heroes vs. Nazis, with a wealth of new info thanks to the outstanding Golden Age Champions

The 50s - The birth of Rock n Roll and television, the heightening of the Cold War, McCarthyism, great black and white sci-fi films...the interregnum between the Golden Age and the Silver Age in the early part of the decade, the onset of the Silver in the later.

The 60s - Baby boomers come of age, the height of the Cold War, counterculters emerge, Rock n' Roll evolves, the height of the Silver Age

The 70s - Watergate, the Energy Crisis, disco emerges...as does heavy metal, arguably the greatest era of filmmaking, Viet Nam, the Bronze Age starts here

The 80s - Ronald Reagan, MTV, yuppies, 'greed is good', the onset of the personal computing age, the Bronze Age gives way to the Iron Age late in the decade...laden with spikes, an overabundance of pouches and misspelled codenames

 

So I'm curious, what decade would you like to play in?  Thanks in advance.

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Hmmm...

 

For me I like a 40-50's outlook in a 70's world.

 

Or in other words superHEROES vice "semi-recovered crack head just a kill'in the bad doods" or some such, set in a world that is just pre cellphone, personal computer, wireless.

 

Good guys versus bad guys in a pre-surveilence world just modern enough that all the players can easily relate to it.

 

I clicked 70's for the poll.....

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1 hour ago, aylwin13 said:

I went with 70's. I grew up in and am a bit more familiar with the 80's, but this:

 

"... the Bronze Age gives way to the Iron Age late in the decade...laden with spikes, an overabundance of pouches and misspelled codenames."

 

I went with the ‘80s as the decade that I grew up in but not as comic book characters were then.

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Given that we just got a honkin' big Champions source book for the 1940s, that seems like a natural choice.

 

On a more personal note, if I'm going for a "retro" game I prefer it to be far enough back that it really feels to the players like a different era. The closer we get to the present day, the differences become less substantive and more cosmetic.

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I like 'em all, though since I've played in 80's campaigns I didn't consider that too much.

 

Golden Age is a great love, but has been done to death and is really well covered. Silver Age would be fun. Atomic Age 50's falls between the two and would be interesting. A lot of giant monsters and alien invaders to fight. Also the era of the James Bond books (as opposed to the films and the more outré spy craze of the 60's).

 

Ended up going with '70s - Disco and swinger heaven. You also have the CB Radio/Trucker craze, Energy Crisis and post-space race space stuff. The UFO craze peaks in the 70's as well. 

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2 minutes ago, mrinku said:

Ended up going with '70s - Disco and swinger heaven. You also have the CB Radio/Trucker craze, Energy Crisis and post-space race space stuff. The UFO craze peaks in the 70's as well. 

 

Don't forget Chips and Emergency :)

 

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Just now, Spence said:

 

Don't forget Chips and Emergency :)

 

 

Oh, I didn't even get started on 70's television :)

 

Rockford Files, Six Million Dollar Man, Starsky & Hutch, Shazam!, Kojak, Wonder Woman, Charlie's Angels and those are just some of the superhero/crime ones!

 

I'm being tempted more by 1950's now I think about it. A lot of giant monsters and alien invaders to fight. Also the era of the James Bond books (as opposed to the films and the more outré spy craze of the 60's). Pre- or very early Space Race. I'd plumb for pre-, since players may not initially realise there's no satellites, or what that implies. Weird Horror before "Seduction of the Innocent". Golden Age heroes having largely retired at the end of the War, but some staying on to fight the Reds. The growth of McCarthyism.

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54 minutes ago, mrinku said:

I'm being tempted more by 1950's now I think about it. A lot of giant monsters and alien invaders to fight. Also the era of the James Bond books (as opposed to the films and the more outré spy craze of the 60's). Pre- or very early Space Race. I'd plumb for pre-, since players may not initially realise there's no satellites, or what that implies. Weird Horror before "Seduction of the Innocent". Golden Age heroes having largely retired at the end of the War, but some staying on to fight the Reds. The growth of McCarthyism.

 

Atomic Horror after "Seduction of the Innocent". (Gaining superpowers tended to turn you into a monster.) Many of the giant monsters were in this category.

 

Test pilots are a natural character type, and a way to gradually introduce the space race.

 

The Civil Rights movement (in the US) was something of an antidote to McCarthyism. It wasn't reflected much in the comics of the day, but it would be quite reasonable to mention it in passing. Also, remnant Nazis are a thing.

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2 hours ago, assault said:

 

Atomic Horror after "Seduction of the Innocent". (Gaining superpowers tended to turn you into a monster.) Many of the giant monsters were in this category.

 

Test pilots are a natural character type, and a way to gradually introduce the space race.

 

The Civil Rights movement (in the US) was something of an antidote to McCarthyism. It wasn't reflected much in the comics of the day, but it would be quite reasonable to mention it in passing. Also, remnant Nazis are a thing.

 

Well, you ARE the dude with Captain Atom as your Avatar!

 

Exenor!

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One approach that could be used for the '50's is that the reason there were few public superheroes is that the government was covering up the threats so that they didn't panic the public; alternatively (or as well) the cold war reclassified superhumans into strategic assets. Either way, the heroes were around, but they weren't allowed to go public. You can make that as grim or as patriotic as you want; In real life the DC big three continued publication, and there were mid-50's attempts to revive other characters whose books had been cancelled, so there's justification for some Golden Age characters to have just kept going, and for a few supervillains to still be around. Or you might have a campaign where mystery men and women were only tolerated because of wartime extingencies and were expected to demobilise afterwards - if not, they're vigilantes, same as before the war.

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28 minutes ago, drunkonduty said:

I went with the 1950's because it's not done that often.

 

There was a What If Marvel Story where President Eisenhower secretly formed the Avengers in the 1950s.  They retconned it to make it The Agents of Atlas.

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