John Desmarais

Starship Troopers (1959) By Robert Heinlein for Powered Armor in combat.

 

The Avengers: Battle of the Earth Eater (1967)  By Otto Binder for the superhero team.

The Avengers: Battle of the Earth Eater was pretty campy at times.  

Pocket Books but out a series of Marvel novels in the late 1970s though that were much better than I expected.  I read most of these when they came out and would, if I still had them, consider re-reading them.

https://www.goodreads.com/series/44439-marvel-novel-series

Guys, this isn't hard.  Golden Age was anything before the Comics Code.  

 

After the Comics code it was Silver Age up until the death of Gwen Stacy for Marvel and Speedy's heroine addiction for DC.  

 

Bronze Age was from those two events until the late 80s when heroes weren't cool anymore.  Call it Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns.

 

Iron Age came with the advent of the small indy publishers like Dark Horse.

I mostly ignore the small publishers when considering "ages" - but I do position the end of the Bronze Age as coming with the popularity of "superhero deconstructionist" comics such as Frank Miller's Dark Knight.

recent news in the UK turned my head to the way different people will react to being superpowered.  This covers a spectrum, not just hero and villain.

 

So, you have the people who feel the need to help others, you have the people that exploit the powers for gain.  You have people who use the powers to boost something else (like Superman who actually just wants to win X-Factor) and you have the people who look to make money in more legitimate ways (ever thought of an Uber style app for superheroes??)...others have covered the ideas related to religion etc.

 

Plenty more ways for people to react to this change in humanity.

Re: winning X-Factor.  I've been mulling over this concept since reading megaplayboy's post.  Still mulling...

A few ideas:

1. Mixed reactions on social media--wild conspiracy theories; denialism; awe and hero worship; paranoia and wanting to control or eliminate superhumans

2. Mixed government reactions--politicians want to piggyback on popular heroes, others want to play on public fears and call for various countermeasures or regulations, some want more research or bills to protect the identities of superheroes

3. Media goes nuts--video features on the news almost every day, attractive heroes get a lot of attention, villains get blown up into global threats, etc.

4. Law enforcement has mixed feelings--some appreciate the help, some are flat out scared of supervillains who can bounce bullets and throw squad cars around, many want more conformity with legal procedure

5. "Doxxing" of heroes a major concern--protection of their identities is a big deal, and some experience tragedy as a result of public exposure

6. Some supers want to cash in on their abilities--commercial endorsements or using their abilities to make money in other ways.

4. The PCs will be part of a government department initiated in part as a response to the Law Enforcement concerns.   Even self proclaimed "heroes", operating independently, create problems for Law Enforcement as their involvement makes securing convictions very difficult. The "official" policy is that independent heroes are not tolerated. (The unofficial policy may vary by municipality.)

5. As part of an organization with experience in maintaining the privacy of it's field agents, I can probably ignore this problem - until I don;t want to ignore it anymore    (Hmmm...  Perhaps an overzealous investigative reporter.)

6.  I hadn't thought about this yet. 

1. World building is secondary to your game. Don't trap yourself into dead ends. There is no "realistically".

 

2. Decide what the game is "about" in terms of primary conflicts and antagonists, and set your background up to support that. Consult with your players to make sure they want to play in it!

 

3. Roughly how common are superbeings? How powerful? How are they distributed? You can change your answers later.

Currently, the instances of detectable superpower manifesting is a little more than 1 per million, power levels spread across a pretty standard bell curve (really minor powers don't show up at all - impossible to detect - most fall within my campaign* "middle range" and a decreasing number of higher power levels).   As a part of the underlying plot the instance of power manifestation is is accelerating.

*Campaign power levels are "standard superhero" (built on 400 points). with the PCs representing the upper end of the middle range described above.  

I like the disbelief idea.  Not sure how to make it have impact in game, but definitely an idea to cogitate on.

So, I've been playing and running Champions for a while now (roughly thirty years) and in all that time I have never done an Emerging Powers campaign. Well, I'm starting a new campaign shortly and my players have expressed an interest in going this way, so I'm starting to put together my setting notes. I've settled on a few items are already - some pertinent to the concept of "Emerging Powers", so not so much:

* Superpowers began manifesting about a year and half ago (yes, there is a singular cause, but that's part of the overall campaign plot mystery, so I won't say why).

* Era is "now", with a tech level appropriate for now (in comics, the emergence of superpowers seems to always have a strange impact on technology - but hat hasn't happened yet - so no super-tech type heroes).

* Law enforcement is not happy with the emergence of superpowered individuals. Superpowered villains are difficult to handle; and superpowered "heroes" don't follow the rules of evidence, take procedural shortcuts, and make it nearly impossible to secure an actual conviction - ignoring for the moment to various crimes they commit themselves in the course of "helping" (breaking and entering, aggravated trespass, assault, violating controlled airspace, etc.).

* The PCs will be one of the recently formed task forces being fielded by a previously secret branch of the Security Service (MI5) initiated to deal with superpowered threats to the realm.

So, why am I posting this? To take advantage of the Hero zeitgeist. What are some common tropes/traits that I need to remember to enforce the feel of an emerging powers campaign?

Average (and what I voted) would be about 11DC, but virtually no character actually has an 11DC attack. Lots of 12DC and 10DC attacks (and a few 9DC, and a tiny number of 14-15DC).

I can't believe that no-one here has suggested Marvel Hero yet.

'Cause I'd rather have DC Hero.  

Golden Age Champions is text-complete and turned in, ready for layout! Woot! Just north of 155k words in final form, with a chunk saved over for the Secret Files later (including the Golden Age lineup of the Justice Squadron, who didn't make the cut.) So, that's probably about 240 pages of text, not including the timeline and the weapons/vehicles sheets, probably about 270 all told.

Yay!

Just wondering if anyone has any experience/tips running this setting back in the day. Thinking of running it with the BBB...

Oddly, I never actually used in a game. I did, however, often use it as my model for how to define a superhero city.

I see a lot of people dont like Deadly Blow and Combat Luck. They work ok for certain builds as long as you keep the power levels in check.

Deadly blow should just be +1 DC per level up to a max of +3DC (+1d6k) and Combat Luck (or whatever) should be limited to +3 resistant defense. That way if it stacks with armor it will not be overwhelming.

Keep bonuses from Talents/Feats low....+1 to +3 in most cases. When they stack with skill levels and situational bonuses, the end result can still be impressive in a Heroic fashion without being overwhelming.

I like Combat Luck, but not in Fabtasy Hero. I use it in genres that don't lend themselves to PC really having any kind of armor or similar protections (such as Pulp Hero). It enables them to (usually) survive the first gun shot.

Finally read Xotl's primer doc for the first time (yes, I'm a bit behind - haven't been real active in the forums here recently).

Nice stuff! Makes me tempted to write up something similar for use in Heroic Level "Normals" type of games, such as Pulp Hero, as those kinds of games tend to be where i have most of my Hero-newbies at the table. With the general lack of powers and magic for those types of games, it would be an even simpler document I think.

The best age? Probably 12.

Oh, that type of age. My favorite stories tend to be in the fuzzy area near the end of the Silver Age and the start of the Bronze Age (about the time I was 12).

My favorite timeframe for stories to set in though is the Golden Age as re-envisioned by Roy Thomas.

You're welcome. I miss gaming with you guys but I've changed jobs and now work six days a week commuting from Annapolis to Mount Airy so I have little free time. If you ever decide to fun an online game though.....

 

Annapolis to Mount Airy? That's crazy

A name generator could be fun too, based on actual golden age character names from the comics and pulps.

Something like this?

https://brideofbigfoot.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/random-golden-age-superhero-comic-book-characters/

So then would we build a character with Strength, a bunch of brick tricks then just having a high STR? But not have Martian Manhunter wide suite of various powers?

Superman, in his first appearances, was strong, tough (not invulnerable, but "nothing less than a bursting shell could pierce his skin) and could leap over a tall building.  That was it.  The rest (and the power escalation) came later.  

Martian Manhunter is (kind of) the first Silver Age superhero, and fits that mold much better than the Golden Age mold.

There are, as always, exceptions to the Golden Age heroes usually had simple power concepts, but the fact that the exceptions stand out kind of supports the idea.  Many heroes had no powers, many had a single power. 

Some noteworthy DC heroes (mostly concentrating on heroes who were part of a team)

================================================================

Batman - no powers, limited gadgets, skilled (but not the "bat god" of today) fighter.

Hourman - Super strength for one hour.

Hawk Man - Fly

Atom - no powers

Dr. Midnight - see in the dark

Flash - run/move real fast (very few of the modern-era speedster tricks)

Wonder Woman - strong, deflect bullets with bracelets, magic rope of truth.

Sandman - Sleep gas gun.

Crimson Avenger - No powers

Wildcat - no powers

Black Canary - no powers

Green Arrow - trick arrows

Star Spangled Kid & Stripesy - no powers

Shining Knight - A flying horse, armor, and sword

Staman - Gravity Rod (precursor to his Cosmic Rod) Let him fly and move things (with gravity)

The "simple" concept falls apart with DC's mystic yahoos: Green Lantern / Dr. Fate / Johnny Thunder / Spectre - Ill defined mystic abilities that did whatever the writer wanted (at least until Dr. Fate got temporarily emasculated).

Over in Marve-land  (mostly concentrating on heroes who were part of a team)

=========================================================

Human Torch - Fly, flame blast, minor defense to some physical attacks due to flaming body

Namor - Strong, tough (nearly bulletproof), fly, swim, breath underwater

Captain America - barely powered plus shield

Red Raven - Fly

Blue Diamond - nearly invulnerable

Miss America - Strength, Flight, (and X-ray vision for a while, but that went away)

Whizzer - speed (but even fewer speed-tricks than the GA Flash)

Thin Man - could get extremely thin (conceptually simple, although systme-mechanically a bit involved)

Patriot - No powers

People forget that the Golden Age gave us The Spector and Doctor Fate. Both characters are not your typical bricks, because they are not bricks.

 

Then there are 'super skilled' normals like Congo Bill (this is years before he became Congorilla).

For a weird chunk of the 1940s, Dr. Fate was little more than a flying brick (the half-helmet period).  ("In story" I think the reason was that Nelson felt Nabu was exerting too much control over him.  In reality, I think the writer just got tired of dealing with big-magic as a power.)  

The Spectre, on the other hand, was all over the map power-wise.

That is just so wrong...

 

 

Major Tom 2009

Yes, sort of, depending on what you mean by examples. Fictional ones discussed, yes,  but I don't walk through character creation of them except to say things like "the Derivative Kid should look a lot like their mentor, except a few DCs less power and lower skills", etc. This book presumes editorially that you know how to make characters in general and want to know more about the genre tropes.

Sidekicks as PCs or NPCs/Followers?  (I often wonder ho many players could really pull off playing a sidekick to a full hero who was also a PC).

As I understand it, Golden Age characters are alittle one-trick ponies. (Not rhat I mind). So are you going to discuss the use of Power Skill in depth? I could be wrong but even in GA, didn't the Heroes sometimes used a one off power?

Maybe not so much one-trick ponies but (usually) having simpler power concepts than modern heroes - but I kind of like that.

Planet Comics from Fiction House (same company that published the pulp mag Planet Stories) has provided me with nearly endless amount of inspiration for pulpy retro-SF - particular ways to populate the other planets in our solar system with life as imagined by pulp-era fans.

I'd play. Pulpy retro-SF is always of interest to me - its one of my favorite genres (even if I don't get the opportunity to run or play in it as often as I would like).   

I'm just tired of Lex. I'd like to see more of Superman's rogues gallery.

Hollywood is deathly afraid of Superman movie that doesn't have Lex or Zod (or both).

I'd like to see them branch out and try something really different for a villain, like Intergang and Bruno Mannheim (which would have made a great lead-in for Darkseid in a later film).

Maybe that superman in the desert sequence IS Bizarro. And he deteriorates, eventually turning into that doomsday like creature.

 

I dont think its actually doomsday though.

 

I actually really do not like the fact that they showed "doomsday" in the trailer.

Perhaps Doomsday is a red-hearing for the trailer?