Dark Champions seems to belong to that 90s-Anti-Hero era more than anything else. The Rob Liefeld staple of a guy with a buzzcut, 5-o'clock shadow, and angry scowl, heavily muscled arms and 6-pack abs, toting an arsenal of guns while dressed in black and/or camo. He'll kill the 'villains' but isn't really any better than they are. The Punisher is the first and best-known example -- and he was supposed to be a Spiderman villain. In the 90s (and look at that 1993 publication date!) that was considered Edgy and "mature" when it was really just nihilistic. Lobo was created as a parody of them, Deadpool started as one, but quickly became the insane 4th-wall destroying clown that made him stand out.
The expansion to cover action heroes is a good thing, IMHO. Without it, it would be nigh useless
I ran a Dark Champions campaign once that fizzled out because while I was picturing something like Batman the Animated Series several of my players made characters too dark for Watchmen.
If you’re in eastern Michigan, how did you happen to choose Boston as your campaign location? My old campaign was set there but we were all from there so it made things easy....kind of.
During a combat in the downtown streets a player needed hydrogen peroxide to make an explosive and when I as the GM said “Well where are you gonna get that?” She smiled and told me exactly where the pharmacy was....she blew a perfectly good 10 ft. Death Drone all to hell.
The way I run a Champions campaign is:
I almost always set it in an actual real-world city, because I don't want to have to come up with maps, decide what's where, etc. (Caveat: I haven't yet tried to run in San Angelo, which looks to be a pretty completely laid-out city designed for a Champions campaign.) I also really, really like using Google Maps satellite view, both for setting up the combat maps with fun details, as well as to let the players get a view of what everything looks like.
As to secret IDs, I don't follow reality too strictly, or it would make it practically impossible for the heroes to maintain one. (Though one can make a case that there are enough unsolved bank robberies and other crimes, many of which involve the robber not wearing a mask of some sort, to make keeping a secret ID feasible.) Sometimes, you have to roll with the genre conventions.
Regarding civilian / super dichotomy, I try to include stuff related to the person's secret ID as well as the super side. To this end, I've given 5 extra points at character creation if the player provides me 5 family / friends / acquaintance NPCs (important note: these are not to be used as DNPCs, just people to add to the campaign world). The players will find ways to use their characters' powers / abilities to help people around them, whether in costume or not. Over time, PCs often start interacting with other PCs' friends / family / etc. in very fun ways.
As far as I'm concerned, the players have a responsibility to find a way for their characters to participate in the adventure. They should know their skills / powers and find ways to use them in a given adventure. As GM, I try to provide plot hooks and usefulness for each of the PCs, but they have to pick up the ball and run with it. If someone doesn't want to, well, he can sit on the sidelines all he wants.
More recently, I've tried to have an overarching plot, in addition to a (often unrelated) plot for a given night's adventure. (I call this the Veronica Mars model, though I'm sure it's been used elsewhere prior to that show.) I'll run the adventure plot itself, usually with something happening (maybe something major, though usually something minor) to move the overarching plot along.
To illustrate the above:
My current campaign is set in Boston. In one adventure, a new supervillain group (the A-Team, a for-hire group of villains whose names all start with the letter "A") was hired to pull a series of crimes to make the Boston supers (Just Cause) look bad. They did this by leaving clues (released later to the media) as to their next crime, which would seem fairly obvious after the fact. After three separate encounters (where I showed the players aerial view maps of the locations), we had the big fight. It was then that I pointed out to the players that in each case, three streets came together to look like an "A". (The look on their faces was priceless.) In another case, rooftop features took on great tactical value, both for the villains as well as for the heroes.
Secret IDs work both ways. (Supervillains can have them too.) My players are willing to accept that they may not be able to use hacked traffic cameras and other security cameras to figure out who's hiding behind Dr. Nefarioius's mask (to borrow assault's example), since that also means that VIPER can't do the same to figure out exactly who the heroes are. I mean, they still have to make an effort to maintain the secret identity, but as long as they're making a fair effort, it will work out okay for them (after the requisite amount of dramatic tension, of course).
In past campaigns, several female PCs (in secret ID) had a spa day with the NPC friend of another PC. When one PC heroine was dating a PRIMUS agent, several other PCs (in secret ID) went along with her to hear his garage band play. When you give one player the spotlight, you'd be surprised how the others want to contribute too, whether with background suggestions or directly joining in. It can be a lot of fun to see how things morph over time.
Last Sunday's adventure involved the PCs setting up a trap for the Empress of a Billion Dimensions, with said trap to be sprung on a world she already controls, sending her to a world they had to visit to set up something to keep her from escaping. Of the 7 heroes, the scientist (Pops), gadgeteer (Maker), and engineer / mage (Malarkey) had skills useful for setting up the MacGuffin to trap her on another world. The detective (Shadow Boxer) had a counterpart (Shadow Man) on the controlled world who could help draw away some of the Empress' forces. The mentalist (Circe) used her mental powers to cover the actions of Pops, Maker, and Malarkey. The necromancer (Nexus) used a summoned spirit to scout out where they needed to go. And the brick (Honey Badger) used his incredible sense of smell to figure out guard patrol routes. There were other plot hooks and possibilities as well, some of which they didn't take advantage of. But the point is, there was enough to involve everybody.
The Empress's plan to draw super-forces away from the campaign world and soften it up with Cthulhu-esque menaces before her planned invasion has been this campaign's overarching plot. The heroes uncovered how she drew many superheroes off-world (using modified blasters and other energy weapons given to groups like VIPER, Genocide, etc.) in one adventure where they needed to "borrow" some equipment from one of the missing hero teams. They discovered her connection to the Cthulhu menaces while investigating a supervillainess team (the Valkyries). They discovered how she was keeping the missing heroes from returning to their world in a different adventure. Each was a step along the way to (hopefully) resolving that campaign-wide plot.
I've asked a similar question but about sci-fi instead of superheroes. The reasons already given are good, but I'd like to add one from my own experience.
Basically, it's because there's a thing called "generic fantasy setting" and there isn't one for sci-fi or superheroes. The settings are almost always described as something along the lines of "it's like [intellectual property here] but ...." and those that don't have a big info dump that may turn players off. OTOH everyone knows what to expect from a fantasy setting, forest elves, mining dwarves, dragons with a preference for sexually inexperienced females, etc. When describing a fantasy campaign on Roll20 or something you focus on what makes it unique. For other campaigns you have to explain more. Like "are there aliens?" "what superhero origins are not available?" "what is the tech level?" So in the end, a fantasy campaign is easier to set up.
I had very much the same trajectory as you, starting out with AD&D in 1980 and then discovering Champions in 1982. However, Champions revealed to me how tired I was of the fantasy genre as a whole--not just as an RPG genre but also as a literary one as well--and so I only ever reluctantly played fantasy RPGs after 1982, usually because it was the only genre being played by the group I joined at any given time. The superhero genre remains my favorite RPG genre of all, probably with science fiction right behind, mostly because I've had so little opportunity to play sci-fi RPGs and so it is sort of an itch that never really got scratched. But to this day I still feel that if I never play or read the fantasy genre again I'd be just fine with that (I approach the prospect of someday bingeing Game of Thrones with a mixture of ambivalence, curiosity, and mild indifference, especially having read the first book many years ago and thinking it was merely okay).
I've asked a similar question but about sci-fi instead of superheroes. The reasons already given are good, but I'd like to add one from my own experience.
Basically, it's because there's a thing called "generic fantasy setting" and there isn't one for sci-fi or superheroes. The settings are almost always described as something along the lines of "it's like [intellectual property here] but ...." and those that don't have a big info dump that may turn players off. OTOH everyone knows what to expect from a fantasy setting, forest elves, mining dwarves, dragons with a preference for sexually inexperienced females, etc. When describing a fantasy campaign on Roll20 or something you focus on what makes it unique. For other campaigns you have to explain more. Like "are there aliens?" "what superhero origins are not available?" "what is the tech level?" So in the end, a fantasy campaign is easier to set up.
Alverant reacted to ScrewySquirrel in dark champions was...
Alverant got a reaction from pawsplay in dark champions was...
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Alverant got a reaction from drunkonduty in Superhero vs Fantasy
