GM advice

[Ninja-Bear]

Well instead of Bank Robbery how about Ankylosaur is stealing parts for his suit? Either to fix it or to upgrade it? Or perhaps a scientist is stolen to do that?

[quozaxx]

I've got to admit,  that is one of the reasons I disliked The Coriolis effect.   Not only did it sound like the heroes were not the center of attention. they are also kidnapped and their powers are taken away  

 

Plus, I GM online for years and not once have I made an impossible situation.   The heroes are to win.

 

I like the concept of The Great Super Villain Contest,  but will probably give them a chance to figure a way inside the complex without resorting to capturing. 

 

 

[Ninja-Bear]

What if you did a fake kidnapping. A previous scenario could be you capture a villain or help him out and in payment he brings you in as prisoners.

[ScottishFox]

If you're going to do a kidnapping scenario it has to be done right.

 

For a friend's birthday I created a Halloween themed Fantasy Hero adventure.

The heroes were the Midnight Market and the scenario is that they were all going to steal Old Lady Nym's giant emerald for their last big score.  Characters were pregenerated as this was a one-shot.

 

Right off the bat they blew my timeline as they spent a good 90 minutes planning the heist, watching which bars the guards went to after work, etc.

They get inside eventually and begin to experience all of the weirdness and haunted-house-ness of the adventure.

They begin to have nightmarish vision flashes of being chained, being submerged in caustic liquids, etc.

A creepy child keeps climbing out of paintings, walls, a child's teddy bear, etc telling them he's there to save them, but his touch causes them to burst into flames.

 

Eventually, at the end, in order to get the gem one player has to operate a mechanism that kills off the rest of the party.  He gleefully does so.

Then old lady Nym appears and kills him.

 

Here's the fun part:  They were already dead.  The whole party of thieves had been caught and killed on their first try.  Old Lady Nym is a lich and has been feeding on their souls with a side order of suffering as she runs them through the night that lead to their deaths over and over.

The creepy painting boy is an angelic being who can barely pierce the wards of the lich's sanctum to try to free them.  His appearance is distorted and his touch free's their soul at the cost of annihilating their undead forms.

Only 1 person made it out and her burning to death scared everyone else off the creepy rescuer.

[archer]

On 7/22/2019 at 11:23 AM, quozaxx said:

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. 

 

Someone is/has broken into the National Superpowers Registry database which holds a listing of the identities and known powers of every superpowered or enhanced person in the country since the registry began 40 years ago.

 

Actual registration itself is voluntary though encouraged. The registry also has information gathered from arrest records, incident reports, hospital/medical records, etc.

 

At the least, the registry might give a clue as to the secret ID of some people from information gathered before they became heroes/villains. Rumor has it that the registry building also holds genetic samples but even if it didn't, it has the last known address of every powered person who isn't in hiding (or completely unknown to the government). This could be seen as a direct threat to the ID's of several of the PC's or their sidekicks/DNPC's since few people know exactly how much information the government does or doesn't know about them.

 

You can alter the level of security on the building to match whatever scenario you envision. It could be in a typical office building with nothing more than locked doors and computer passwords. Or it could be deep inside Cheyenne Mountain in the old SAC military base and surrounded by the finest men and equipment the US government has.

[BoloOfEarth]

2 hours ago, quozaxx said:

I've got to admit,  that is one of the reasons I disliked The Coriolis effect.   Not only did it sound like the heroes were not the center of attention. they are also kidnapped and their powers are taken away.

 

I like the concept of The Great Super Villain Contest,  but will probably give them a chance to figure a way inside the complex without resorting to capturing.

 

Although... there's nothing saying the PC heroes can't meet and befriend an NPC hero (probably someone from out of town, so he doesn't end up stepping on their toes in the future), who is then captured but somehow gets word out to the PC heroes.  If you set it up right, this could work well with TGSVC, when the villains capture the NPC hero, and the PC heroes have to rescue him.  The PCs capturing the villains who captured their friend and then disguising themselves as said villains might work to get them into the complex.  (Put some thought into making / choosing the villains that the heroes might have to impersonate.  Maybe they have similar powers to the heroes.  All of the villains should definitely have helmets / full face masks / other usable disguise.)

[quozaxx]

4 hours ago, BoloOfEarth said:

 

Although... there's nothing saying the PC heroes can't meet and befriend an NPC hero (probably someone from out of town, so he doesn't end up stepping on their toes in the future), who is then captured but somehow gets word out to the PC heroes.  If you set it up right, this could work well with TGSVC, when the villains capture the NPC hero, and the PC heroes have to rescue him.  The PCs capturing the villains who captured their friend and then disguising themselves as said villains might work to get them into the complex.  (Put some thought into making / choosing the villains that the heroes might have to impersonate.  Maybe they have similar powers to the heroes.  All of the villains should definitely have helmets / full face masks / other usable disguise.)

I like the idea of capturing an NPC hero.   

And the registry idea may work as a filler episode that is connected to TGSVC.  They can use it to find high point heroes that they can defeat 

 

Besides Ankylasaur, who else would you have in the contest?