Doctor Zen

Still looking for players? I would be interested in playing.

On 6/9/2022 at 9:33 PM, Spence said:

 

Oh, absolutely. 

 

So a quick run down.

 

Campaign Cartographer 3+ is the current version and has all the capabilities needed to do any kind of map you want. 

 

While you can do everything with just CC3+, the add-ons add tools that automate and streamline many functions. 

City Designer 3 is an add on that adds menus, tools, templates and symbol catalogs specifically to aid in designing cities of all types from fantasy to modern to futuristic.

Dungeon Designer 3 is an add on that adds menus, tools, templates and symbol catalogs specifically to aid in designing and creating a very wide variety of, you guessed it, dungeons, catacombs and sewers.

Cosmographer 3 adds star-maps, solar system maps, planetary maps and deckplans.  It even has catalogs and templates to generate Traveller maps and deckplans.

Perspectives 3 is like the other add-ons, but in this case does the 3D perspective cutaway maps.

 

There are three symbols sets which include 2500 symbols in sets 1 and 2, and 2000 in set three plus textures and stuff. 

Symbol Set 1, Fantasy Overland

Symbol Set 2: Fantasy Floorplans

Symbol Set 3: Modern Symbols

 

And they have the Source Maps sets.

Sources Maps: Castles - 25 castles and 141 plans plus all the symbol catalogs used to make them and they are fully editable by CC+.  And the Perspectives 3D symbols sets are included.  Some fictional but many real world such as Penafiel, Castello dei Conti Guidi, Pfalzgrafenstein, Harlech, and La Belle Colline.

Source Maps: Temples, Tombs and Catacombs - 25 sites and 149 plans plus all the stuff.  Examples are Angkor Wat, Borgund Stave Church, Christchurch Cathedral, Gizeh - Pyramid of Khufu, Hal-Saflieni Hypogeum, Ise Shrine, and Machu Picchu.

Source Maps: Cities - is a little different with 8 Cities, 26 Buildings, 78 Plans.  Examples are a city map of Rothenburg with plans for the Town Hall, Inns and Town Houses. A city map of Southampton with plans for a Wine Merchant, Armed Merchantman (Small Carrack) and a Warehouse. 

 

Then you have access to the Cartographer's Annuals.  Each month they put out an item (Style Pack, Map collection, etc.) that includes symbols, style packs and such as well as tutorials.  For example Cartographer's Annual Vol 1 included the following twelve items:

1 Style Pack "Mercator Historical Maps"

2 Style Pack "John Speed City Maps"

3 Map Collection "Fantasy Tavern"

4 Style Pack "Sarah Wroot Overland Maps"

5 Map Collection "Panicale"

6 Template Collection "Parchment & Paper"

7 Map Collection "Caves and Caverns"

8 Style Pack "Starship Deckplans"

9 Style Pack "Modern City Maps"

10 Map Collection "Cathedral"

11 Symbol Pack "Connecting Symbols"

12 Mapping Guide "How to Create a Style Pack"

 

Number 9 Style Pack "Modern City Maps" consists of:

• 4-page pdf Mapping Guide
• 2 example maps (fcw, pdf and png format)
• 2 template wizards
• 4 templates
• 2 new styles
• 44 new drawing tools
• 35 new symbols (2 catalogs)
• 2 new effect settings

We are currently into Volume 16 and item 186. 

Here is a link to see yourself.  https://www.profantasy.com/annual/2022/2022-cartographers-annual.asp

 

Yes I know I went overboard, but I cannot stress how impressive CC3+ is. 

It may have a learning curve, but like Hero System is to RPG's, CC3+ is to mapping programs.  Once you get the hang of it there are no limits. 

You didn't go overboard as far as I am concerned. You gave me a wealth of information. Now I can look and decided for myself. I thank yoiu.

Thanks. Did not realize that CC would be good for modern day city maps.

What do you use to draw your maps? Do you freehand or is there a program that you use?

Thanks for replying. I really appreciate you taking the effort in supporting another player. Real heroes! ?

I would like to see if there is any interest in a play-by-email Champions game that will start out as individual heroes. They may meet up at some point, but I would like to see if solo running can work since I do not have blocks of time available to do group play online, but I can send out emails on a somewhat consistent basis most days.

I am looking for 2 or 3 people to start. The game will begin in November 1940 in the fictional city of Port Indigo, a large town on the Eastern seaboard. The flavor I would like to go for is Golden Age -style heroes but with a Bronze Age-style of stories. The best examples are Spider-Man and his run-ins with various underworld leaders and groups, the Pre-Crisis All-Star Squadron and the Liberty Legion/Invaders books. This is not a Dark Champions campaign, but may include Dark Champions Animated Series type characters.

Combat will be mostly hand-waved (with some random die roll results by me) unless it is against major villains or their chief henchmen. Players will be given the situation, and then send me a general outline of what actions they want to do. An example will be: Captain Avenger sees six men on the docks taking some boxes off a ship. No leaders or arch-criminals are present that he can see. The Player may send me a message that Captain Avenger will sneak up using cover and then try to take out as many goons by surprise as he can and then attack the rest when he is discovered. CA will try to keep one goon awake so as to interrogate him. Then I would send back the results of the confrontation.

From time to time,, the results may dictate that a PC may be rendered unconscious. I hope players will be willing to follow the trope of being captured, taken to a hideout, learn some clue or the whole plan of the mastermind is their, maybe rescue a prisoner and then escaping. If this is not something you like to have occur, then maybe rethink about participating.

In previous fantasy games I have run I have given players a lot of background information that they tended to not read. To prevent that, I would like any interested players to send me a list of 10 o 20 questions that can be answered in one or two sentences about various aspects of the game world and the city itself. No rules related questions at this time, please. I want to gauge interest before getting into the nuts and bolts. No reason to write up a character for a world you do not want to play in.

Questions should be along the line of:

Do aliens exist in the campaign?

There are alien races currently known to the populace at large. If you are interested in being an alien or having an origin connected to an alien race, we may be able to work something out.

Have superheroes appeared before 1940?

Masked heroes and villains have appeared before. They are known as "para-normals" or "para-norms". The most well-known is Lady Liberty, who has appeared in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and the Great War. The largest number or para-norms appeared during the Great War, with the US, Great Britain, France, Germany and Russia all having one or more during the conflict. Also, some characters from fiction or legend may have been para-norms as well.

What is the history of Port Indigo?

Port Indigo was founded in 1645 by Swedish settlers and was known as Hamn Gustav (Port Gustav). It was eventually taken over by the English following the Second Anglo-Dutch War in 1664 and renamed Port Indigo because it was the major export at the time. It has grown to become the third or fourth largest port on the East Coast. Hit strongly by the Great Depression, it has recently begun to rebound and is beginning to flourish once more.

These three questions are examples of what I hope people will send. The answers are, of course, examples of what is known to the players and their characters.

So, if anyone is interested, let me know.

Kenneth Crist

kennethcrist1@gmail.com

Anyone know how the map for Hudson City was created for the source book? I would like to create my own city and have looked at a few programs but they do not seem

to give the same results. I cannot draw at all, so that is why I am looking to see how it was done originally.

I found "Soon I Will Be Invincible" by Austin Grossman to be enjoyable. It is from the villain's point of view and you get to see the plotting of world conquest from the other side of the street.

"The Avengers and the Thunderbolts" by Pierce Askegren. This was not an adaptation of published comics, but an actual story featuring both teams. I was a big fan of both groups and enjoyed this one.

"X-Men and Avengers: Gamma Quest" by Greg Cox.was a decent story, but too me continues the unfortunate X-Men and Avengers fight each other and then the main foe and the Avengers decide that "Mutants are A-okay!" It happens a few times in the comics, which seemed to indicate that each time the two groups met, something erased the Avengers memories and they had to learn to accept the X-Men all over again each time. Strange for a group that had at least 3 mutants on its roster.

Superman: Last Son of Krypton" by Elliot S! Maggin which came out about the time of the first Christopher Reeve movie. It was another origin story for Kal-El but had a interesting idea of the ship searching out the best person on Earth to raise young Kal and it could be a certain physicist teaching at Princeton in the 1940s and 50s.

I liked the Wild Cards books #1-7, 10-12. But as time went on, it just became more and more depressing. There were no real "heroes" and it seemed to embody everything I did not enjoy about the Dark Age of comics.

 

(Just realised that this is basically the Ultra-Humanite's origin, only with a gorilla instead of a construct.)

There is also the case of two of DC's Robotman characters, Dr, Robert Crane (1940s) and Cliff Steele (1960s). Robotman had a trial to prove his "humanity" in Star Spangled Comics (v1) #15 and later expanded in All-Star Squadron (v1) #17. Did Cliff Steele of Doom Patrol fame ever have to prove his "humanity"?

Long story lines in comics, such as the first Dark Phoenix saga and the original Captain Marvel/Thanos story seem more like arcs in a campaign, but not a campaign itself.

I guess what I am really looking for is if any GM has gathered his players together and said that the main story of the game would be the heroes need to take down the forces of DEMON (or some other organization) or, maybe, there is a mysterious figure behind several things that are happening in the world and you are gong to stop it. Not every story would need to be connected to that but there would be a definite stopping point and the game would end.

In fantasy, the quest is an obvious campaign trope, find the ring/sword/human avatar that will stop the Dark Lord from ruling the fair lands of Smiling Face peoples.

This query came up from something I saw in the Golden Age Champions thread when someone mentioned that there were no campaigns presented in the released product. It got me to wondering if anyone actually used a campaign theme or if they followed the usual comic book style of combating menaces no one else can defeat and then stopping the next menace when it rears its costumed head.

In most fantasy games in my experience a campaign usually for the characters last for several real years of playing time. In the few Champions games I have have the pleasure of playing in, there is always a "Campaign City" but no long plot thread to send the players on.

Does the superhero genre not lend itself to this kind of playing style due to the source material, of have I just missed out? Has anyone ever put their players through a long, drawn-out story line that could encompass a hero going from just starting out to being one of the premiere heroes in the country?

The only "campaigns" I can think of in comics were for solo characters. I do not count "Watchmen" as a campaign as it had a single story to tell. The examples I see are:

Cerebus: 300 issues telling the life story of one obnoxious aardvark. (Fun at first, but eventually lost in the bitterness of the writer)

Starman: James Robinson's examination of the life of Jack Knight.

Miracleman: While the story lost me at some point when I could no longer identify with the character, I think that Moore had a beginning-middle-end idea for this character.

Now, I am not including Japanese comics which probably have a large number of these types of books (Lone Wolf and Cub, for example) because I have not read a lot of those. And probably the British and European comics have examples, but I have been  exposed to only a few of these books.

Can teams of supers go through a campaign?

Not exactly worldbuilding  and a little late as you've started, but as the campaign begins you might want to ask your players to describe a day in the life. Get an idea how they see their place in the world and interaction with their npcs.

I like this idea. Not all players will know the answer, because some players I know like to experience the world they are playing in before doing too much character stuff. But overall, I think having them describe how they fit into the world would help make it real for them.

Hi QM

 

Funnily, I'm myself thinking about another dystopian world to continue my Mystic Champions campaign; a world were DEMON actually launched End of the World, where the Elder Worms and the Kings of Edom invaded Earth from Vibora Bay. Remaining defenders of humankind living in a post apocalyptic world where humanity is enslaved, treated as food reserve, breeding stock or such.

 

So plenty of place for al sort of "heroes", including reforming villains, and too-old-for-that-shit heroes.

 

Not sure it is something you'd interested with, but don't hesitate to PM me if it does.

 

Opale

This sounds like a lot of fun as a campaign. Minimal support. Limited resources. Impossible odds of success. I am so there.

For a more complex version of WWII, you could always look at James P. Hogan's "The Proteus Operation". Rat bastard oligarchs in a idyllic 21st Century invent time travel to go back in time and make the 20th Century go along a more war-filled fascist path and help an obscure political party in 1920's Germany, the National Socialist German Worker's Party rise up and unleash terror on the world. An now isolated USA and Canada in the 1970s in this new timeline get their own time travel and attempt to go back and stop the original meddling. The world were the Germans are taking over the world and advanced science achieved through time travel could have plenty of possibilities. Throw in possibly a little of David Brin's "Thor Versus Captain America" with Norse gods taking an active part in the war and it sounds like any other comic book universe: Nazis, time travel, gods, advanced science, parallel universes... what more do you want?

My advice would be form up a small "main team" for each location and fill in others as you need them. Have some floating characters who operate in-an-around and can be expected to turn up anywhere (ones with non-local responsibilities like Doctor Strange or Thor are good). Ten per sub city is probably a bit many, especially if you don't even know how many players you'll have.

 

I'd think 3-5 a good number for each team.

 

Love the idea of a 70's retro campaign

 

 

Thanks for the input. I think I should decide if there are anymore fictional cities in the country besides the campaign one at some point. I already have a fictional Caribbean island without extradition with the U.S. for villains to slip away to. I should also probably come up with a Latveria/Markovia counterpart. 

I am working on a timeline for a game I would like to run in the future. Unfortunately, I have no players.

I have paid homage (stolen) to both DC and Marvel so far in creating the various alien races that exist. I have taken real world meteorite strikes and made them into crashed alien ships that have helped supply advanced tech to both the United States and the Soviet Union.

My ideal would be to run one group in the 1940s and one group in the 1970s, but I think I will have to settle for the 1970s group. I picked this time because I did not want all  the modern communications capabilities that I think ruin some of the fun of super teams. If everyone can communicate with each other all the time, I think it cuts down on suspense.

Any way, when creating or selecting a city for your campaign, do you start out with the known number of NPC heroes in the city or do you allow the players to be the only heroes? I am thinking of populating the cities (sister cities New Athens and Port Indigo) with about 10 NPC heroes to give the location some flavor, but not enough to over shadow what the players should be able to accomplish. What is a good hero per city ratio for story telling purposes?

I am in Catonsville, MD outside of Baltimore.

My question is how much of a write-up should you do for NPCs who are expected to interact with the PCs on a regular or semi-regular basis?