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Introducing players to Champions at a mini-con


sentry0

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14 minutes ago, Brian Stanfield said:

If the players like this, you can soft-start them with their own characters by using the Quick Character Generator I mentioned above. Have you seen the quick character generation cards that will be coming out?

 

I would love if they liked it enough to want to do that. 

 

Hopefully, I can give them a good first foray into the Champions universe.

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I did something like this a while back.  I was running the game as part of International Gaming day. 

 

Premise:  Everything should have a recognizable Minnesota flavor since that is where I live and all the players would be from.

 

Characters:  A variety of characters so people can choose.  All the characters already had their powers and the backgrounds were explained to the players at the start of the game.

  • Paul Bunyan - Find a magic Axe and become Paul Bunyan.  Very tall and strong.
  • Taconite - Iron miner falls into vat of taconite and should have died but instead took on the characteristics of taconite (steel).  Classic brick in every sense of the word.
  • Grey Wolf - Martial artist (built as a multipower to make it simple) who is a member of Lakota tribe
  • Wind Hammer - A Valkyrie - kind of a Thor look alike.  Wind powers + flight + big ass hammer to smash folks with
  • Slapshot - Mutant with ice powers and she can move like crazy across ice (MN you know)
  • The Mosquito - Power armor shrinking + blasters but no range (gotta to fly up to their opponent and blast them in the ear or some other spot)
  • The Purple One - Mutant who can use sound to blast people (AoE) and also a very simple mind control (Party like its 1999 - forces people to dance)

 

Plot:

  • Quick character background
  • Role playing while at casino
  • Fireball event
  • Rush to the scene (arriving in waves)
  • Put out brush and forest fire
  • Aliens troops show up and attack
  • Take out troops
  • Two supervillains show up and attack
  • Defeat everyone and capture them
  • Smile for the media :-)

Scenario:  The characters don't know each other but have heard about each other - except for Paul Bunyan and Taconite (if they are picked) because they operate in the same parts of northern MN.  Everyone is at a northern MN casino when a huge fireball, flying in a straight line, crashes outside of town.  The fireball is a damage space ship, modeled after the Chitauri from the Avengers movie.  The main opposition was Chitauri warriors some on the ground and some flying (I think there were 2 to 3 per PC).  After dealing with them two mid-level supervillains also get involved.  Everyone shows up in waves and it is a battle royal.

 

One of my friends made custom character sheets to make it easier for the players.  I pre-made a giant speed chart and used sticky notes to indicate who would go when.  I also had a battle mat + figures/paper minis (Paul Bunyan was a metal frost giant) + 3d terrain - I mean what good is it to have characters who can pick up trees and use them like baseball bats if you can't see characters pick up trees and use them like baseball bats.

 

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Whenever I run an intro adventure with pregen characters, I always have the PCs hanging out at the Hall of Justice when a Trouble Alert comes in.  It usually goes something like this:

 

Trouble Alert: Giant monster rampaging at City Park. 

 

"Quick!  To the Hover Jet!"

 

The PCs must use teamwork to overcome the kaiju's enormous PD, STUN & CON.  It is slow and has a low CV, but with a 75 STR it is sure to PHASE any PC it manages to hit.  (Pro Tip - Make sure all the PCs have the Teamwork skill at a reasonable level.  You may need to prompt them that they can use Teamwork to combine attacks.)

 

Once they overcome the kaiju, it becomes obvious that this was just a distraction.

 

Trouble Alert: VIPER is attacking the city Diamond Exchange. 

 

"Quick!  To the Hover Jet!"

 

The PCs will face a swarm of Agent-level NPCs.  They operate in teams of three, have armor, and multi-grenade launchers loaded up with Flash, Entangle, EB, NND, and AOE everything.  They also all have the Teamwork skill, and fight very intelligently.  But Agents are not PCs, and they should fall like dominoes.  Once it becomes clear that the squad is going down, the team leader activates a teleport homer and escapes with the diamonds. 

 

When the coast is clear the manager of the diamond exchange steps forward and informs the PCs that he slipped a tracking beacon in along with the diamonds.  He hands the PCs a receiver that will lead the PCs right to the VIPER nest.

 

"Quick!  To the Hover Jet!"

 

Once the PCs enter the nest, steel plates slam shut over all the doors & windows,  "You fools are SOOO predictable.  And once you're out of the way there will be no one to stop our MASTER PLAN.  Get them!  HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"

 

Out hop Ogre, Pulsar, Foxbat, whoever, a number of NPC villains built on the same number of points as the PCs and with a comparable mix of powers.  But by this point the players should have a good enough understanding of the game and their character's powers to put the villains down.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Brian Stanfield said:

If the players like this, you can soft-start them with their own characters by using the Quick Character Generator I mentioned above. Have you seen the quick character generation cards that will be coming out?

 

I like the idea of having six or so pregenerated characters for the players to chose from.

 

Buy having the GM create the PCs and the NPCs, it allows him to control the mix of CV, SPD, and powers so that no one character is too powerful, either PC or NPC.  Also that makes sure that the GM is well aware of the capabilities of everyone, NPC and PC alike.

 

This way he knows that EVERY PC has Deduction, Paramedic, Teamwork, PS: Superhero, KS: Supervillains, AK: Campaign City,  and so on.  

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3 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

One big warning -- some players would rather their characters die in a blaze of glory than get captured / taken hostage.  Especially the Security character -- that player is bound to think it's his job to fight back immediately.  In my experience, a game plan that involves taking the PCs hostage rarely if ever ends well.  Yes, it's a comic book trope, but it runs completely counter to RPG player mentality.

 

 

mmmmm....  I wouldn't agree there.  I've had very successful con one-shots that started with the PC as prisoners and routinely use the captured hero's trope.  Especially in on going games.   Heck I've even used being a hostage in D&D games. 

 

In a con one-shot for supers I establish right up from that the game is not a D&D hack and slash and that as superheroes saving lives and avoiding killing is a high priority of the genre and game.  Also it is superheroes and things like secret identities, recurring villains and deathtraps are a part of the genre.  Gamers are pretty sharp and if you are up front with the game concept, there isn't an issue.   Most players, once they realize the game, will get into it. 

 

The ones that will whine are also the ones that always build the teifling or dragon-born in D&D and stab the other players in the back and take their stuff. 

To be blunt, if you are running for that kind of player, no setting or trope will improve the game and it will be a disappointing ride.

 

I had to jump in because the captured hero is one of the most enjoyable tropes out there and a fantastic one if used to pass on "secret information".  After all, the Villain, his lieutenant or henchman will just have to gloat before ending the heroes.  

 

Just my 2 cents.

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2 minutes ago, phydaux said:

 

I like the idea of having six or so pregenerated characters for the players to chose from.

 

Buy having the GM create the PCs and the NPCs, it allows him to control the mix of CV, SPD, and powers so that no one character is too powerful, either PC or NPC.  Also that makes sure that the GM is well aware of the capabilities of everyone, NPC and PC alike.

 

This way he knows that EVERY PC has Deduction, Paramedic, Teamwork, PS: Superhero, KS: Supervillains, AK: Campaign City,  and so on.  

 

In cons, I always use pre-gens.  Always. 

 

But I would suggest that you make multiple versions of each slot with adjusted write-ups. 

At a minimum one female and one male sheet of each.  Very little work is needed to change names and pronouns in the backstory, and it gives the players the another handle to identify with the PC. 

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Sentry0, perhaps it would be helpful to you to consider some of the adventures published in Hero Games' electronic magazine, Digital Hero. Most of them were written to fit into one-session convention games for new players. They all include NPCs with illustrations, most have maps, and some include pre-generated heroes to use as handout PCs. The adventures were written for Fifth Edition Hero, but since you're familiar with that they wouldn't be hard to adapt to Sixth. And the individual DH issues are quite cheap from the Hero Games website store; especially considering all the other cool stuff they contain.

 

I've found "Infectious Enthusiasm" by John Taber, from DH #9, to be the easiest to run, since it introduces a new team of heroes (and provides full PC write-ups) and does nearly all the prep work for you. However, if you want to include PC origin as part of the event you might prefer "Project Predator" by Ed Hastings, in DH #29. That adventure actually features a large selection of diverse low-powered PCs you can choose from. In any case all the DH adventures have elements you could crib from for your purposes.

 

Our fellow forum member JmOz made a list of all the DH adventures, categorized by genre, which he posted to the forum. I also saved all the Tables of Contents from the DH issues in a searchable document. I'll Attach both documents below for convenience.

DH Adventures .doc

DH TOC.doc

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4 minutes ago, Spence said:

 

Gamers are pretty sharp and if you are up front with the game concept, there isn't an issue.   Most players, once they realize the game, will get into it.

 

 

Man, I don't know who you've had the pleasure of gaming with, but my experience is that a lot of players playing in a one-off games are just there to slash and burn and make the game as much about them as possible. 

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14 minutes ago, phydaux said:

 

 

Man, I don't know who you've had the pleasure of gaming with, but my experience is that a lot of players playing in a one-off games are just there to slash and burn and make the game as much about them as possible. 

 

eh...   Just regular cons and and eye for the munchkins out there. 

 

But give them the opportunity to knock a villain through a couple walls and they get into it. 

 

Waking up captured and then breaking out is a great way to set the stage and introduce the players to the concept they are not some piddling sword-swingers, but are SUPERHEROES!!!

 

It is hard to kill a super in Champions (cinematic supers version) unless they are really mismatched.  If you make the pre-gens and the villains, then super to super killing is not likely.  Henchmen or bystanders are in danger, but that is when you pull out the "but you're a SUPERHERO! and supers don't kill".

 

Besides a supers game isn't tracked by treasure, so if that is what they want, then you've already lost them before you started. 

The opening pitch sets the tone. 

But you are correct in that sometimes the players just suck.  However if you hang in there, you'd be surprised at the players you do find. 

 

Once again a strong lead in and GM setup is key.  I've actually had munchkins get up and leave before the start when I set the genre ground rules of the session.  The rest of the players and I had a blast.  Three good players are far superior to a table of munchkins. 

 

 

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51 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

Sentry0, perhaps it would be helpful to you to consider some of the adventures published in Hero Games' electronic magazine, Digital Hero. Most of them were written to fit into one-session convention games for new players. They all include NPCs with illustrations, most have maps, and some include pre-generated heroes to use as handout PCs. The adventures were written for Fifth Edition Hero, but since you're familiar with that they wouldn't be hard to adapt to Sixth. And the individual DH issues are quite cheap from the Hero Games website store; especially considering all the other cool stuff they contain.

 

I've found "Infectious Enthusiasm" by John Taber, from DH #9, to be the easiest to run, since it introduces a new team of heroes (and provides full PC write-ups) and does nearly all the prep work for you. However, if you want to include PC origin as part of the event you might prefer "Project Predator" by Ed Hastings, in DH #29. That adventure actually features a large selection of diverse low-powered PCs you can choose from. In any case all the DH adventures have elements you could crib from for your purposes.

 

Our fellow forum member JmOz made a list of all the DH adventures, categorized by genre, which he posted to the forum. I also saved all the Tables of Contents from the DH issues in a searchable document. I'll Attach both documents below for convenience.

DH Adventures .doc

DH TOC.doc

 

This us great stuff, I'm going to start reviewing it.

 

Thank you!

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15 minutes ago, Spence said:

It is hard to kill a super in Champions (cinematic supers version) unless they are really mismatched.  If you make the pre-gens and the villains, then super to super killing is not likely.  Henchmen or bystanders are in danger, but that is when you pull out the "but you're a SUPERHERO! and supers don't kill".

 

This may be naive but I purposely seeded some of the characters with your classic "Heroic Code of Ethics" and some not.  If someone wants to kill then I *will* expect people to actually roleplay their character appropriately.  Besides, you do have to work pretty damn hard in this game to kill someone, even an agent is really hard.

 

None of the characters have been written to be sociopaths.  Even the most militant character has no Psy Lims that would turn him into a murderer.  

 

I guess if I get a bunch of players who rolled in straight from the Temple of Elementary School Evil I'll be in trouble.  I'll still give it my all but I will point out there's a bar on premises should I need to take the edge off ?

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Sentry0 also I thought about the monster rampage is that if it’s a villain say Ogre (with the Devolution Ray), he gets captured, have a scientist tell them the back story. (I’d make him a tragic villain). If the heroes capture him, then have them find out that viper stole either the Ray gun or notes or the scientist himself. Either way, that’s the ploy to get them to search for a Viper base.

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2 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Sentry0 also I thought about the monster rampage is that if it’s a villain say Ogre (with the Devolution Ray), he gets captured, have a scientist tell them the back story. (I’d make him a tragic villain). If the heroes capture him, then have them find out that viper stole either the Ray gun or notes or the scientist himself. Either way, that’s the ploy to get them to search for a Viper base.

 

Cool idea, I'll see if I can work it in :)

 

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That really depends on how detailed the characters are and how much math you want to show under the hood to potentially new players. There are several different varieties already in the download section and some made with the intent of hiding as much of the build math as possible. I like the full detail html ones the best because I tend to make super detailed characters.

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If they've never played Champions before, I'd suggest keeping the writeups simple to understand and easy to use.  I like phydaux's suggestion of the Trouble Alert, and having the players run through some standard superhero scenes.  Since it's a one-shot game, most players I know will be more concerned with understanding how the rules work, rather than really getting in character.  I'd try and give them a 5 minute intro on how to play ("want to hit somebody?  roll 3 dice and you want low numbers").  Give them their sheets, hit the high points, and get them playing.  They don't need to even peek at the 600+ page rulebook to be able to enjoy it (you don't want to scare them off).

 

I might even hand them a cheat sheet with the combat math already done for them.

 

Power Guy (OCV 8) versus:  Viper Agent (DCV 4) -- Base to hit 11, +8 OCV is 19, -4 DCV = 15 or less to hit

Power Guy (OCV 8) versus:  Viper Leader (DCV 6) -- Base to hit 11, +8 OCV is 19, -6 DCV = 13 or less to hit

Power Guy (OCV 8) versus: Giant Monster (DCV 0) -- Base to hit 11, +8 OCV is 19, -0 DCV = 18 is automatic failure, so 17 or less to hit

Power Guy (OCV 8) versus Ninja Man (DCV 10) -- Base to hit 11, +8 OCV is 19, -10 DCV = 9 or less to hit (note: less than 50% chance)

Note: if enemies use the Dodge maneuver, they give up their next action to increase their DCV by 3.  This will lower your chance to hit by 3.

Note: Ninja Man has a special maneuver called Martial Dodge.  When he dodges, his DCV goes up by 5.  This lowers your chance to hit by 5.

 

Keep it simple enough that a 9 year old can understand it, and then they can focus on enjoying the game rather than trying to get the game concepts.

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8 hours ago, Ninja-Bear said:

Spence I agree you should be upfront with game expectations. Cause you could have someone thinking it’s a Golden Age game, those heroes have been known to kill villains now and again.

 

Absolutely. Each of us have different concepts of "Superhero".  Even on the definition of Golden, Silver etc.  I know people that classify Deadpool, Wolverine and Batman as Heroes and Superheroes rather than people with powers ?

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On 3/25/2018 at 7:05 PM, Spence said:

 

mmmmm....  I wouldn't agree there.  I've had very successful con one-shots that started with the PC as prisoners and routinely use the captured hero's trope.  Especially in on going games.   Heck I've even used being a hostage in D&D games. 

 

In a con one-shot for supers I establish right up from that the game is not a D&D hack and slash and that as superheroes saving lives and avoiding killing is a high priority of the genre and game.  Also it is superheroes and things like secret identities, recurring villains and deathtraps are a part of the genre.  Gamers are pretty sharp and if you are up front with the game concept, there isn't an issue.   Most players, once they realize the game, will get into it. 

 

The ones that will whine are also the ones that always build the teifling or dragon-born in D&D and stab the other players in the back and take their stuff. 

To be blunt, if you are running for that kind of player, no setting or trope will improve the game and it will be a disappointing ride.

 

I had to jump in because the captured hero is one of the most enjoyable tropes out there and a fantastic one if used to pass on "secret information".  After all, the Villain, his lieutenant or henchman will just have to gloat before ending the heroes.  

 

Just my 2 cents.

 

To clarify my thoughts, and respond to yours...

 

I have nothing against the "captured heroes" trope.  Heck, I tried to use it to start an ongoing game.

 

If a con one-shot starts with the PCs as prisoners, that's one thing.  It's a foregone conclusion, the players can't muck with that, so the GM's good to go.  But if getting their powers hinges on them being taken hostage, and they start out not as hostages -- that's what I'm warning about.  Because at a con, you can't guarantee that the players you get to play your game will all be okay with the "captured hero" genre trope.  All it takes is one stick-in-the-mud to throw a monkey wrench into the whole plot.

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I've been playing around with writing my own "Simple HTML" export template because I couldn't really find one that I liked or could get to work.  

 

Some notes:

  • Not finished....what do you think of it so far?
  • Heavily influenced by the RTF templates Legendsmiths made
  • I'm going for a simple uncluttered look but am not sure if I'm hitting the mark
  • Trying to keep the template DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself)

 

What do you think....is it suitable for a new player?

 

simple-export-template.png

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