Hall of Champions Requests

[greysword]

For the intrepid game designers in the community, I wanted to make a request for a Hall of Champions submission.

 

One thing that helps me as a less experienced GM is the ability to use pre-generated NPCs and basic environmental settings.  It's nice to be able to grab a few villains from the book, but also be able to grab a few normal NPCs that can be weaved into a story on the fly.

 

To that end, I was hope to suggest a submission for the Hall of Champions store.  Law Enforcement: The Sourcebook

 

I would love to have a book that delves into Law Enforcement and how to insert it into an encounter, adventure, or campaign. 

 

Whether it is Champions, Dark Champions, Fantasy Hero, or Star Hero, every setting has a local constable, police force, or elite royal guard.  Thus, the book would contain information on the makeup of local law enforcement, their general operating procedures, how they enforce the laws of the land, and how they might interact with a group of sanctioned heroes, rogue vigilantes, anti-heroes, and normal citizens.  How do the police handle living in a land where superheroes have been around for decades or caped heroes are new to the world?  How does the veteran beat cop feel about meddling heroes?  How about the rookie?  The precinct captain might have some words, good or bad.  And how about the Commissioner?  In the stars, how would a lone space ranger handle a group of vigilantes? What about Sector Command?

 

What do local law enforcement do when they apprehend a super powered villain?  How about when the heroes are arrested? 

 

The book might also have a few generic officer templates to use in a pinch.  The buddy cops who always seem to be partners.  The patrol sergeant who is first on the scene to take command.  The detective who keeps asking the heroes questions after an encounter.  The rookie fresh out of the academy.  Maybe even a cop with special abilities, themselves.

 

Lastly, a basic map of a police station, County jail, bank, and other places we might find cops or robbers would be helpful.

 

I don't know if it's improper to make these sort of suggestions, but I wanted to throw one out that would benefit not only my game, but those of other GMs.

 

Thank you for listening!

 

 - Chris

[Chris Goodwin]

57 minutes ago, greysword said:

What do local law enforcement do when they apprehend a super powered villain?  How about when the heroes are arrested? 

 

But... but... why would the police ever do such a terrible thing?  Arrest a hero?  For what?  Whatever she -- I mean, they -- did, there must have been a good reason...

[greysword]

10 hours ago, Chris Goodwin said:

 

But... but... why would the police ever do such a terrible thing?  Arrest a hero?  For what?  Whatever she -- I mean, they -- did, there must have been a good reason...

 

Clearly, it would be a mistake.  I mean, the heiress to the name of a superhero family dating back generations couldn't possibly do anything that would put law enforcement in a position to question her... I mean, their integrity, right? 😋

 

It was a hypothetical question that might be useful in such a supplement for some GMs, I think. 😁

[Chris Goodwin]

A bit more on topic   While I'm not any of the board admins, I can't imagine there being any harm at all in asking someone to write such a supplement.  

 

A couple of the 4th edition Dark Champions books have some info about supers and the law (Dark Champions, Justice Not Law), and they're available in PDF from the Hero Games store.  I don't have the 5th edition Dark Champions in PDF, but I'm sure that information is in there as well.  I have both the 4th and 5th edition Dark Champions in hardcopy; I can bring them to the next session if you want to borrow them.

 

I've bought a lot of GURPS supplements over the years, partly because they're usually well researched and quite usable with Hero.  There's a GURPS Cops supplement which would probably prove helpful.  I don't believe I have that one or I'd bring it as well.

[PortlandOutcast]

I don't know, maybe shooting a police office (almost killing him) in the back in front of the SWAT team might be considered a bit hostile.

I think something like this might require more PRIMUS involvement. 😁

[Solitude]

In the years I game mastered I used to buy all of those detective magazines you found at news stands and insert real crimes into my campaigns. 

 

I did not (in general) run stories where the players could get by listening to the radio or a police scanner and hope to arrive on crime scenes.  They had to do detective work,  and buy enhanced senses and patrol. Normal people were robbed or killed the whole time,  often in secret.  Cops can't stop crimes they don't find out about. 

 

Failure was likely to be hard on one's NPCs or the manager for ones wealth perk...or even ones romantic rival.

 

Combat wasn't always on a level that was a serious threat to a team, but the team sometimes found themselves in a bunch of simultaneous fights that were a serious threat to the normals.

 

All of this was overlaid on top of standard superhero plots.

 

If players ignored the small stuff it was going to bite them hard eventually. 

[Khymeria]

This would be an interesting sourcebook and a great expansion to almost any style super campaign.  I just had my first supplement publish for Hero Games, Book of Templates, I’m finishing up the second, and then would definitely consider something like this.  I’ve always liked Savage Dragon and Batman: Year One.  

[thorngumbald]

The 5th Edition book Stronghold had quite a bit to say about the criminal justice system in the Champions Universe.

[Lord Liaden]

5 minutes ago, thorngumbald said:

The 5th Edition book Stronghold had quite a bit to say about the criminal justice system in the Champions Universe.

 

That would be good place to start assembling precedents for any campaign. Stronghold goes into considerable detail on how the American (principally) law-enforcement and judiciary evolved to cope with the presence of superhumans. The CU is of course the default reference, but it could apply to almost any supers world. And of course, the book's eponymous super-prison is described, mapped, and game-statted at length.

[Duke Bushido]

If you're looking for normals and civilians, the two books that come to mind immediately are both 4e:

 

Denizens of San Angelo (a rich and varied variety of "normal people" who live in the city, with a bias toward those people in legal and law careers-- the sorts of people the player will likely encounter.  Sure, there are some other folks, too, but mostly the folks that live lives that are most likely to intersect with those of the heroes.

 

There's also a lesser work-- I don't mean to make it sound as if it isn't a solid source; Denizens had _insanely high_ production value, particularly in the write-ups and lives of the characters presented-- from HERO Games called "Normals Unbound."

 

There was probably something like that for 5e, too, but I couldn't tell you.  Maybe 6e, too, but again-- I was never excited enough to look.

 

Before you say "But that's _old_ stuff!"   Replace the Sony Walkman with those "something about Mary" air pods and you're golden.  HERO isn't like D&D and other long-lived multi-generational games:  everything from _ever_ is fully backward and forward compatible.  That might be why I was never interested in the newer stuff:  When you're sitting on three hundred or so books for one game, it's just damned hard to get excited for a new one.  :/

 

Anyway, you can get the PDFs from the HERO store fairly inexpensively, if that's the sort of thing you're hunting for.

 

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

As far as collections of diverse "normal" people for Hero System go (including law enforcement), there are other relatively inexpensive options in the website store: Normals Unbound for Fourth Edition, in PDF form; and Everyman for Fifth Edition, in PDF, printed book, and Hero Designer character pack.