GM advice

[quozaxx]

Hey fellow champions 

 

I'm considering being the GM for our face to face group game.   I'm thinking of doing Champions Battlegrounds 

 

But I want something that could lead up to Battlegrounds.   The characters have not been made yet.

 

They will be beginning characters, for 5th edition,  350 total points 

 

So, what would you suggest?  A bank robbery sounds too cliche.   I'm hoping for something that could use skills. 

[steriaca]

Investigation on a missing person. Prehaps a kidnapping.

[ScottishFox]

51 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Investigation on a missing person. Prehaps a kidnapping.

 

And the missing person is the bank manager!

 

The only one who can open the ultra-high security vault at midnight.

 

Can the heroes reach the bank in time to stop the villains from getting away?  It's good to have a little motivation for the heroes beyond their lust for battle.

[steriaca]

1 minute ago, ScottishFox said:

 

And the missing person is the bank manager!

 

The only one who can open the ultra-high security vault at midnight.

 

Can the heroes reach the bank in time to stop the villains from getting away?  It's good to have a little motivation for the heroes beyond their lust for battle.

Didn't the OP state that he didn't want a bank robbery? Superhero rpgs and bank robberies are cliche to the max. Each V&V rpg starts with one, for crying out loud.

[Doc Democracy]

Well, if this is a get to know you style game, then you might consider the heroes being kidnapped and put in some alternate dimension with no obvious way to know where they are or how to get home...

 

This should immediately give them some kind of motivation to help each other.  I am tempted to suggest that the kidnapping is the result of a child's nightmares, not a coordinated attack, that the child has seen them and had a nightmare about them getting beaten by some strange enemy and the childs latent mental powers dragging each of the heroes into this alternate dimension while they sleep...

 

Doc

[steriaca]

5 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

Well, if this is a get to know you style game, then you might consider the heroes being kidnapped and put in some alternate dimension with no obvious way to know where they are or how to get home...

 

This should immediately give them some kind of motivation to help each other.  I am tempted to suggest that the kidnapping is the result of a child's nightmares, not a coordinated attack, that the child has seen them and had a nightmare about them getting beaten by some strange enemy and the childs latent mental powers dragging each of the heroes into this alternate dimension while they sleep...

 

Doc

Into The Spider-Verse anyone?

[BoloOfEarth]

I started a campaign once with a new team of villains planning to bust Utility out of PRIMUS custody and try to recruit him into their team.  Each hero came across a different part of the plan (one found some makeshift robots stealing PRIMUS uniforms from a dry cleaners, another happened upon one of the villains stealing a bunch of stolen PRIMUS weapons from a group of VIPER agents, another overheard a minion trying to recruit his brother as a driver for a new villain team, a fourth was investigating the theft of a bunch of Fed Ex trucks (again by makeshift robots), and the final one witnessed the theft of a PRIMUS prisoner transport vehicle (with the ability to holographically look like other vehicles -- for instance, a Fed Ex truck) by robot minions.  (That hero was stuck in court testifying in a different case and could only watch the theft through the shatterproof window.)  The hero who overheard the minions talking had heard about the other heroes' actions (fighting robots / VIPER / etc.) and brought them all together to compare notes.  You just need to make sure each encounter gets that hero's name in the news. 

[BoloOfEarth]

My first Champions game's first adventure (with me as a player, not GM) involved UNTIL trying to pick up a VIPER operative who was trying to turn traitor on the criminal organization, but VIPER found out and sent a group of supers to kill the traitor, and the heroes all happened to be nearby in secret IDs.  When the UNTIL and VIPER operative (both in plain clothes) got together, one villain moved in to attack, and a hero stopped him.  So another villain attacked that hero... and another hero came in.  Rinse, lather, repeat until everybody was involved.  It was kinda fun how the villains and heroes alternated showing up for what became a nice battle royale. (I think this was an encounter from the original VIPER Nest adventure, so the later parts involved skill use.)

[BoloOfEarth]

As to something leading up to Champions Battlegrounds, I'll have to wait until I get home (and see whether I even have that) to give you any ideas.

 

Are you planning for the heroes to already be together at the start, or are you looking for something that will bring them together as a team in the first place?

[BoloOfEarth]

31 minutes ago, Doc Democracy said:

Well, if this is a get to know you style game, then you might consider the heroes being kidnapped and put in some alternate dimension with no obvious way to know where they are or how to get home...

 

This should immediately give them some kind of motivation to help each other.  I am tempted to suggest that the kidnapping is the result of a child's nightmares, not a coordinated attack, that the child has seen them and had a nightmare about them getting beaten by some strange enemy and the childs latent mental powers dragging each of the heroes into this alternate dimension while they sleep...

 

Doc

 

Or it could all be a mental illusion caused by the kid, and the heroes need to use clues from the dream to locate the kid, who is really in danger and looking for help. 

 

I've got to admit, I've never had success with the whole "heroes being kidnapped" thing.  My players have always resented it big-time, and fought tooth and nail to avoid it happening.  Some of them would rather their characters die than be captured.  Of course, YMMV, but if the players don't like that sort of thing, it may leave a sour taste in their mouths for the whole campaign.

[ScottishFox]

47 minutes ago, steriaca said:

Didn't the OP state that he didn't want a bank robbery? Superhero rpgs and bank robberies are cliche to the max. Each V&V rpg starts with one, for crying out loud.

 

His concern was that it's too cliche and he wanted a chance for the heroes to use their skills.

 

So a kidnapping investigation to start off with and perhaps a battle at the bank to wrap it up.

 

Alternately, a painful fork in the road forcing the heroes to deal with a moral dilemma.  While the vault is being opened with the kidnapped bank manager there remains a smaller group still holding the bank manager's husband hostage!

Do you save the money or the person?

 

I think the OPs concern is that they want a richer experience than just smash villains at bank.

[Doc Democracy]

25 minutes ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

Or it could all be a mental illusion caused by the kid, and the heroes need to use clues from the dream to locate the kid, who is really in danger and looking for help. 

 

I've got to admit, I've never had success with the whole "heroes being kidnapped" thing.  My players have always resented it big-time, and fought tooth and nail to avoid it happening.  Some of them would rather their characters die than be captured.  Of course, YMMV, but if the players don't like that sort of thing, it may leave a sour taste in their mouths for the whole campaign.

 

Players resent being captured and overpowered.  All of this happens off camera and they are not in chains or imprisoned, they are simply somewhere strange with no idea how they got there or how to get home.

 

it helps if you start with a fight they all win, and by that I mean start the session with, OK, Segment 12, here is the situation, what do you want to do?

 

Doc

[quozaxx]

2 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

As to something leading up to Champions Battlegrounds, I'll have to wait until I get home (and see whether I even have that) to give you any ideas.

 

Are you planning for the heroes to already be together at the start, or are you looking for something that will bring them together as a team in the first place?

Probably separate.   Small success in the background but nothing major 

 

I have San Angelo enemies and conquerors,  killers and crooks.  I'd like to include at least one super villain.

 

2 or 3 heroes.  (Depending on who can play that day)

 

Who would you choose that's not in Battlegrounds?

[Ninja-Bear]

I don’t have Champions Battlegrounds so I’m not sure about those villains to recommend. However how about either the Slug or Anubis? The Slug  be stealing parts to make more humidity suits and perhaps more crystals to transform more humans into Eldar worms. Anubis could be stealing parts for someone else with the promise of an artifact as payment. 

[Duke Bushido]

Run with the bank robbery / kidnapping.  Just dress it up a bit:

 

They aren't looking for guns blazing, cash in the bag type stuff.  They are specifically after the contents of two unrelated safety deposit boxes.  One contains bearer bonds, the other a rough pile of documents... 

 

See where your se se of adventure takes you from there. 

[dsatow]

Here's one I was planning to use at a con. 

 

Describe each person's day at some random point up in their lives.  Have each player roll 3d6 as a luck/unluck roll (6s are a good situation and 1s are a bad situation).  Add in any solely luck or unluck dice.  Then in the middle of some action, they get summoned to the campaign world.  Per summoning rules, they arrive stunned at a random segment in the turn.  A good witch used a "summon heroes spell" to save some people from some evil agency (say Demon or Viper) and while they players are stunned, the agents are dragging away the witch (who went unconscious not having enough end for the summoning spell and taking NND damage).  The first thing the players have to do is save the innocents from the agents and then save the witch to get back home(or warn her not to use the spell anymore).

[BoloOfEarth]

6 hours ago, quozaxx said:

Who would you choose that's not in Battlegrounds?

Well, for those who don't have Battlegrounds, it includes the following villains (mostly from CKC):

• Herculan
• Lodestone
• Mirage
• Utility
• Ogre
• Black Diamond
• Blue Jay
• Cheshire Cat
• Foxbat
• Hummingbird
• Black Harlequin
• Holocaust
• Minuteman robot
• Stormfront
• Zephyr
• Interface

As to someone not on that list, I've always been partial to Ankylosaur, Howler, and Lady Blue as villains (not necessarily together).  But really, who is involved should depend on the plot you choose.

[BoloOfEarth]

Hmm.. if you only have 2 to 3 heroes, you don't want to go with a full villain team at once, though you could have individuals or pairs of villains for different parts.

 

You could use Anarchy (from San Angelo Enemies); their goal of attacking government and "removing social structures that stifle the modern world" makes for a nice wide range of possible adventure plots.  Blaze is powerful enough to take on 2-3 heroes by herself, while any 2-3 of the others could work together in various scenes and be a good challenge for a pair or trio of heroes. 

 

How about:  Everybody's eager for the latest gPhone release, with its ultra-smart social media apps.  Well, everybody except Anarchy, who see such social media as keeping people apart, not bringing them together.  So they decide to demonstrate such popular foolishness by stealing a truckload of gPhones, kidnapping a brilliant programmer to have him hack the smart-social apps to, I dunno, maybe make the phone overhead and blow up, or release a contact neurotoxin designed by Blight, or whatever you want.  (Of course, they can't have the programmer talk afterward, so Blight probably does his Plague Touch to the poor guy and they dump his body.)  They then have some rent-a-thugs replace the real gPhones with the stolen hacked/repackaged gPhones while members of Anarchy cause distractions at several major gPhone retailers.  If all goes according to plan, they not only get to trash a bunch of gPhones and get their message out about the evils of replacing face-to-face time with FaceTime, but then after the fact they also get to discredit gPhones when their hacked versions do their thing.

 

This gives the heroes some investigative work - who stole the truckload of gPhones?  Who kidnapped/killed the programmer and why?  Why did Anarchy hire a bunch of goons?  Possible initial encounters could include the heroes stopping the theft of a truckload of gPhones by a villain and a hired / coerced truck driver (while another Anarchy team steals another one across town), and the heroes catching a pair of villains (or a villain and some hired thugs) stealing some component they need for their gPhone hack.  And of course the main encounter(s) at the retailer(s).  Bonus points if they discover and head off the gPhone hack consequences.

[quozaxx]

5 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

Hmm.. if you only have 2 to 3 heroes, you don't want to go with a full villain team at once, though you could have individuals or pairs of villains for different parts.

 

You could use Anarchy (from San Angelo Enemies); their goal of attacking government and "removing social structures that stifle the modern world" makes for a nice wide range of possible adventure plots.  Blaze is powerful enough to take on 2-3 heroes by herself, while any 2-3 of the others could work together in various scenes and be a good challenge for a pair or trio of heroes. 

 

How about:  Everybody's eager for the latest gPhone release, with its ultra-smart social media apps.  Well, everybody except Anarchy, who see such social media as keeping people apart, not bringing them together.  So they decide to demonstrate such popular foolishness by stealing a truckload of gPhones, kidnapping a brilliant programmer to have him hack the smart-social apps to, I dunno, maybe make the phone overhead and blow up, or release a contact neurotoxin designed by Blight, or whatever you want.  (Of course, they can't have the programmer talk afterward, so Blight probably does his Plague Touch to the poor guy and they dump his body.)  They then have some rent-a-thugs replace the real gPhones with the stolen hacked/repackaged gPhones while members of Anarchy cause distractions at several major gPhone retailers.  If all goes according to plan, they not only get to trash a bunch of gPhones and get their message out about the evils of replacing face-to-face time with FaceTime, but then after the fact they also get to discredit gPhones when their hacked versions do their thing.

 

This gives the heroes some investigative work - who stole the truckload of gPhones?  Who kidnapped/killed the programmer and why?  Why did Anarchy hire a bunch of goons?  Possible initial encounters could include the heroes stopping the theft of a truckload of gPhones by a villain and a hired / coerced truck driver (while another Anarchy team steals another one across town), and the heroes catching a pair of villains (or a villain and some hired thugs) stealing some component they need for their gPhone hack.  And of course the main encounter(s) at the retailer(s).  Bonus points if they discover and head off the gPhone hack consequences.

That's not a bad idea, but do you think that Anarchy as a group would be too powerful for 3 heroes?  

[Mr. R]

On 7/22/2019 at 10:23 AM, quozaxx said:

 

 

So, what would you suggest?  A bank robbery sounds too cliche.   I'm hoping for something that could use skills. 

 

One Champions module starts with a Bank robbery, but instead of one it is three (or four?).  And they happen all at the same time.  The idea was that at least one will succeed as the heroes will be busy elsewhere. 

[BoloOfEarth]

1 hour ago, quozaxx said:

That's not a bad idea, but do you think that Anarchy as a group would be too powerful for 3 heroes?  

 

Yeah, that's why I was saying you could use individuals or pairs of villains for different parts.

 

For example, the heroes encounter Harpy and a pair of thugs stealing a truck full of qPhones.  Wham, bam, thank-you-ma'am, now Harpy is behind bars.  Unfortunately, Blight and another pair of thugs stole another truckload across town, so Anarchy's plan is still a go.

 

Next, the heroes encounter Quartz and Haze breaking into Henderson Electronics to get the parts and tools they need to modify the qPhones.  One or both may be captured.  So the villains contact VIPER or someone else and have to pay for what they need.

 

If all three are captured, that leaves just Blaze and Blight for the final scene. They should be a good match for 3 heroes.

 

Even if none of them are captured during the earlier encounters, the villains don't all have to be together at the same place.  Maybe Blaze attacks the BurstBuy store on the north side of town, while Blight and Quartz hit the Lord Wal-de-Mart on the south side, and Dust and Harpy strike the Phil's Phone Emporium on the east side.  They do this since the heroes can't be everywhere at once, so even if the heroes stop one of the attacks, one or two of the other teams will still be successful with pulling off the phone switch.  The heroes probably stop one of the three teams, but the real victory is figuring out that something else was going on, and stopping that plot (which doesn't even require a villain fight).

 

Anyway, it was just an idea.

[quozaxx]

I have just read the great super villain contest.   I really liked it, except the part where it suggests the players play the villain at the 3rd act.  

 

I'd probably give them a chance to thwart the contest.   And granted,  it suggests using a bank robbery as one of the ways to draw out the heroes.  But at least the motivation would be different. 

 

Now I just need ideas for smaller "filler" ideas between getting attacked.   I also will probably be using Ankylasaur as one of the contestants 

[steriaca]

You want cliche filler? Nothing is more cliche then saving a someone tied to some railroad tracks.

 

...heck, if Princess is in play, she is both secret villain AND damsel in distress.

[Duke Bushido]

On July 22, 2019 at 2:38 PM, BoloOfEarth said:

 

Or it could all be a mental illusion caused by the kid, and the heroes need to use clues from the dream to locate the kid, who is really in danger and looking for help. 

 

I've got to admit, I've never had success with the whole "heroes being kidnapped" thing.  My players have always resented it big-time, and fought tooth and nail to avoid it happening.  Some of them would rather their characters die than be captured.  Of course, YMMV, but if the players don't like that sort of thing, it may leave a sour taste in their mouths for the whole campaign.

 

 

Yep.

 

Kidnapping PCs sucks all the way around.  First, you have to actually _do_ it, which means endless combat until the PC is beaten to near death or is exhausted to near death because he just can't quite bring himself to cooperate with the story....

 

Then when you have split the group, you have to simultaneously run for the non-kidnappees _and_ the kidnapee(s),  who will _not_ give you ten seconds to work with the other group for spending every tenth of a second heckling about the intricate details and their plan to turn regurgitate the their stomachs and use the dripping acids to eat away at their bonds.....

 

 

it's just an awful, awful thing to try, even if you bring it up beforehand and they _agree_, it's still going to be an _awful_ session: both groups see this session as "spotlight on me!"  Just don't do it.  Not now; not ever.  Do _not_ kidnap a PC.

 

 

That's what _DN_PCs are for.

 

 

 

[steriaca]

Never kidnap PCs. You can attempt it, but it should never be successful because the player will not stand for it. They view it as being taken out of the story, as oppose to being the star of the story (or, at least, a living McGuffin).