Anaximander

Thanks!  I keep forgetting that Hero allows players to cash in points to upgrade their abilities.  Maybe, I am still thinking in AD&D where once it is written done it is almost like being written in stone.

I am working up an introductory plus ongoing superhero campaign.  I have hit a block, mostly me being indecisive about the introductory campaign. 

 

Here is a little information on what I am doing.  IMO the hardest part of figuring out how to play HERO is not actual play.  It is relevant character creation.   No actual structure exists for the new player to use as a frame of reference when they build their characters.   It is OK to try and explain it with pounds of written text, but the only way to actually understand in a way that will allow one to actually apply the information and produce a character concept that is actually what you intended is to actually play one and roll dice.     Which brings me to my introductory plus ongoing superhero campaign.

 

I will kick off with an introductory campaign that includes pre-generated player characters, including backgrounds and complications.   The players will be members of the city’s premier superhero team and will assist the big guns in combating the nefarious machinations of a master villain.    In keeping with my overall plan, the players will be pitted against one of the Master Villains lieutenants.  The climax/end of the introduction will be the foiling of the master plan and the escape of some of the lieutenants and henchmen to the actual campaign city.    This campaign city has no resident superheroes or villains. 

 

My world is a very low super population one, meaning that supers of any kind are extremely rare.  Any group of supers will be accorded a lot of deference because they are powerful.  Having actually played the first mini-campaign using the pre-generated PC’s with backgrounds, the players should now have a tangible and useful idea of how HERO actually works.  Having been exposed to how to spend XP, they will see how the points translate into ability.  

 

So the players will then build their actual PC’s to play in the real, full campaign.   

 

So why am I writing this?  I am having trouble in making the pre-gen’s.

 

The pre-gens must:

• Provide a wide example of the different archetypes of supers available
• Demonstrate complications
• Establish campaign tone
  • Morality 2) Good vs bad is mostly clear-cut
  • Realism 1) Very romantic
  • Outlook 2) Almost everything works out
  • Continuity 3) Some long stories, some episodic ones
• Be interesting enough teach, but generic enough to not overshadow the player concepts.
• Be natural builds.  What I mean by natural builds is that they have no critical devices or armor.  They are 100% fully capable in their birthday suits.  A martial artist type can carry a staff, but the staff is just a staff.  It is not a focus.
• They all have Secret ID’s and are employees/detectives of the Broadmoor Justice Foundation Ltd.   Broadmoor is an international corporation that specializes in discrete investigations and has an untarnished reputation for honesty and above board services.  They are also known to cooperate with local law enforcement agencies. 

 

That is basically what I am trying to do.  But you will need some more basic information on my campaign world.

 

A first point is that in my super’s games are very Golden/Silver’ery and players have “stables”.  Or in other words players will eventually have 2 to 3 characters that they can run.  But only one PC can be active in an episode. 

 

As mentioned before, the world does not have large numbers of supers.  As with early comics (back when they were focused on superheroes, and not murder hobo’s with powers) the big concentrations will be in the US.  The Intro campaign will take place in one of the cities with the highest concentration of Superbeings in the world.  New York City.  But even there, the total count of Superbeings will be under 30 all told including villains.

 

The actual player campaign will take place in Hudson City (because I am very familiar with it) which is a city that has no Superbeings at all.  The villains that escape/flee the Intro Campaign will go to Hudson City and the heroes that follow them will be the Hero volunteers (Broadmoor Justice Foundation detectives and support technicians) to capture them. 

 

This will mean that the first PC’s the players played were fully pre-generated, and the second PC’s will be designed by the players but still required to fit inside a pre-determined box of circumstances to facilitate “learning” the new city.   Any PC’s built later will of course be 100% player driven since by that time they will have a firm grasp of the campaign world.

 

The time period and general technology will be much like the retro-modern setting of Batman: The Animated Series (1992-1994).  While cell phones and PC’s do exist.  Cell phones are just phones without a cord (no smart anything or cameras), people are still agog about flip phones.  Wireless computer networks (hardwired or nothing) or the internet as we know it does not exist.  While there are some internet resources available as is email.  It is the far more primitive version we had in the late 80’s and very early 90’s.  Data is restricted to direct connection to LAN’s or dial up (real world broadband didn’t even really get going until the very late 90’s and early 2000’s anyway).  So surveillance cameras and computers require physical wiring and recording video or files are done with physical media, video tape and floppy discs.  CB’s (citizen band radios) are still the big thing for communications that do not need a hardline.  Cell phones only work if they are within range of a cell tower, and cell towers are pretty much only found in major metropolitan areas.

 

DNA is still in it’s infancy as a crime fighting tool.

 

Digital photography is the domain of very rare specialists.

 

Morality in the campaign is Good vs Bad being mostly clear-cut.  Everyone is pretty much as they appear with the occasional bad guy masquerading as something else.  The governmental agencies are good in of themselves.  Problems occur not from the agency, but from bad people in the agencies.

 

Realism will be very cinematic and very romanticized.  Lots of heroic adventure and two fisted action, little grit except and window dressing and plot.

 

Outlook, almost everything works out.  Yes, the good guys are not only expected to win, they almost always do in the end.

 

Continuity, the campaign will consist of episodic sessions that are tied together by overreaching plot arcs.   The player that can be there every session will find an interesting and nefarious plot to foil, while the player that can only play every few sessions will be able to drop and not be totally lost. 

 

Interaction with non-supers, superheroes are known and welcomed allies of law enforcement and emergency services.  The normal citizen looks up to them in general as “the good guys”.

 

This will be the first foray into superheroic roleplaying for most of my players.  Up till now, their favorite games have been mystery/horror like Trail of Cthulhu, Fear Itself, Call of Cthulhu plus standard adventure like D&D 5^th.  Though investigative games have been their favorite.  Which is the reason that the heroes will be private investigators/detectives who are also Superheroes, with HEROES being the operative word. 

 

The campaign will also have a mystic tint with magic and Chi as a given. 

In super identity the flashy costume is a requirement.  These superheroes do not skulk in the dark; they proudly announce to the world they are HEROES. 

 

So that is it.  I need some inspiration to build the pre-generated heroes. 

• They will be standard superheroes (400pts) with straight up caps as per Champions (pg 135).  
• But they will not be focus/device monkeys. 
• I need a minimum of 6 characters.
• Each character should be unique if possible.
• Each pre-gen should not be too cool since they are to be throwaways.  Or, in other words don’t waste any really really cool ideas.   
• Investigation and detective work will play a major part of the game so their secret ID's will be active ID's.

 

Building champs characters is actually really easy.  It is the initial concept that is stumping me. 

 

I have discussed this with my player group and they are ready to go, so I want to start before the enthusiasm dies.   It has taken a while to locate a group of role-players that can click with. 

I am in a similar boat.  I would like to run a Hero System campaign but never have done so, and likely players have not done so either and are not as keen on my ideas as I am.  I figure I have one shot to get it right.

Though I have no actual experience running the game, I do like writing and have taken writing classes.  With that in mind, one thing you need is a clear vision in your mind of what you want, and you seem to have that covered.  This will help you in knowing when to say "yes" and "no" to character ideas that may run a little counter to what you have in mind.

Also, like in other media of writing, you have to know your audience and find common ground with them where you can run the game you want while they can run the characters they want.  I, for one, do not liking playing pre-gens.  There has so far been only one pre-gen I remember fondly.  He was a dwarf named Jhaefer in the first ever ADnD campaign I ever played in.  Even then, I had a lot of freedom to develop him once he got into play.  I, of course, do not know your players, but if it were me, I would try to find out what types of characters the players want to play and build their first characters for them using the players' ideas.  This is another area where having clear vision can come in handy.  What you want and what they want might be at odds and you may have to compromise a point or two.  Having a clear vision will help you to know when to compromise and when not.

Then comes the first game or two.  Here is what I would like to do.  I would like to have each character get a chance to go one-on-one against common thugs.  This will allow them and me to get a fill for their relative power level to the common citizen as familiarity with basic play.  After each character has had their chance with common thugs, I would device a scenario where all the characters happen upon a crime being committed by some sort VIPER-like super gang that would be impossible to thwart by any single hero but easy with the group working together.  This will allow me to have a better gauge of group combat and how the players are likely to work out as a team and who will naturally take what roles.

After the getting to know each other and system adventures, then, I would start introducing some of the grand arcs of my campaign setting.

Also, recognizing that both I and the players are new to the system, I would create a few heroic and super-heroic NPCs at various levels to come in and save the day in case I horribly misjudged the power-levels of the bad guys relative to the PCs.  If they do become necessary, I would gradually fade them out as I and the players gain real experience with the game.

Also, after they had a chance to get to know the game and their characters, I would give the players a chance to redesign or replace their characters based on the new information or let those first character go into their stables in case the players need a ready backup character.

As for the character stable idea, I have had similar ideas except I refer to mine as a character corral.  I come from a cowboy state, and I like alliterations.  I really like the idea and developed the idea when I was still planning a Star Trek campaign using the Last Unicorn Games system.  I think this is an excellent way of dealing with characters who have limited usage.  One of the intentions I have with mine is that depending on the next adventure I want to run I could either give soft hints when certain characters would be more or less advantageous in the next adventure or even lay down strict restrictions and requirements. 

Another thing I am working on is allowing non-played character to receive bonus XP based on a percentage earned by played characters.  I have not determined what percentage I would use or if I would apply it evenly across all non-played characters or be divided among non-played characters at the player's choice.  The idea is that they are taking part in recorded adventures at the same time.

I am not familiar with source, but his power levels should be dependent on the needs of the story.  Let's face it.  Comparing super heroes from different sources is often a comparison between apples and oranges making an accurate translation nearly impossible.  For that matter, it can be difficult to determine real power levels for characters from the same universe.  The same issue occurs when comparing sci fi universes, but that would be another subject.

I prefer traditional cape and tights for supers, but I mainly employ whatever I think best fits the character's theme.  I do insist that a character's a'venturing clothes to be somewhat distinctive and different than their everyday clothes.

How do you handle situations when a character has more than one martial arts style that share maneuvers and CSLs for each martial arts style?

Say for an instance, a character starts out with Generic Martial Arts.  At the beginning of play, the player defines the character as primarily a passivist who happens to know how to fight; so, only buys a 2 OCV only CSLs in Block.  After adventuring in Japan or some little Tokyo area, he decides to his character has developed an interest in learning Karate; so, he buys the necessary KS skills to apply his generic maneuvers into Karate and 3 CSLs in all Karate maneuvers.  Later on, the player develops an interest in Muay Thai Kickboxing and decides his character follows suit.  The player fulfills all the in-game requirements to learn Muay Thai and can now use many of the maneuvers he knows through Generic Martial Arts and Karate in Muay Thai mode.  He also buys a couple Muay Thai maneuvers and 2 CSLs in all Muay Thai maneuvers.

One day, while walking in the wrong part of town, a thug comes out, threatens him, and takes a swing.  The player wants to start out with Block and then use a martial strike during his next available movement phase.  Does he have to state which martial arts style he using, and how many CSLs would he get to use?  My instincts are that he should be able to use the Block CSLs for either Generic, Karate, or Muay Thai Blocks, but the Karate and Muay Thai CSLs should dependent upon whether or not the character is using Karate, Muay Thai, or Generic fighting styles.  I am curious as to how experienced GMs would handle this.  For the record, so far I have not had a player suggest they wanted to play a martial artist, but since I like martial arts in real life, a lot of my NPCs know martial arts.

I would also go with the NPC plot thing.  It's not like this a power I would allow a player to use, and I would only want to use it sparingly as a GM.  Just make sure the NPC has both the motivation and means; so, it makes story sense.  After all, a character like Brainiac might have both motivation, twisted programming, and means, super-science, but the same can not be said of the Penguin.  Even Brainiac didn't try to steal cities every time he showed up.  He was just the go-to villain when a story called for towns to get stolen.

Maybe, you can borrow the Unusual Background drawback from GURPS.  It's basically for situations where a concept is rare but possible within a given campaign world.  Life for example, you want magic to rare but you don't it to be nerfed.  You might say that anyone with magic first has to buy the Unusual Background: Mage Blood for 15 pts; so, mages would have fewer points to be used in total, but if the rule is applied across all characters both PC and NPC, then the character would no advantage or disadvantage relative to other mages and would have access to powers and abilities not available to those who did not want to spend the points.  Of course, GURPS also has the notion of different magic zones that could either advantage or disadvantage magic users that is useful in determining the real power level of magic once the initial cost is taken out.

The South also had a submarine called the Hunley, but I don't think that would be such a good name for either a hero or a villain.

I prefer to think it as dry humor than a flat joke.  That way it makes the outcome seem more intentional.

Actually, I knew that "ja" wasn't German for you, but my way sounded funnier.  Now, stop spoiling it.

You have to break the word down into its individual components.  Nin which sounds like the first sound in nincompoop which is another way of saying stupid and ja which I think is the German word for you.  Clearly, it is some kind German insult.  How it got associated with the Japanese, I have no idea.  Maybe, it has something to do with their alliance in WW2.

Someone mentions an aquatic character, here is an idea for one.

The Gator - A Cajun from Louisiana who breathes underwater, swims fast and can control mind control over reptiles, fish, and amphibians.  He is also a tough scrapper.

You might want to add some kind of defensive power to that attacks going through the field will lose velocity losing force in the process, but since the loss of velocity and force would work both ways, it would have to be a defense that is as much a disadvantage as an advantage, and I still think that adding Barrier to the mix might be the way to go.  Of course, I have not been playing this game as long as you guys; so, I accept I may be totally off base.

This assumes the copy store will agree to make the copy. Many will refuse on the grounds of (unfounded fears of) copyright infringement. It is common for copy stores to refuse to help customers take advantage of their Fair Use rights.

 

An alternative is to buy the PDF and upload it to a print on demand service like Lulu. I paid around $11 and $9 respectively (beyond the cost of the PDFs) for the printed books you see below.

 

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That is something interesting to know.  I was wondering how I could share information from the books without having to rewrite everything personally or sending my electronic copies to them and hoping they are honest enough to acquire them legally at a later point.

Steel Magnolia - a cyberneticly enhanced belle of the south.

Rebel Yell - sonic powers

Star and Bars - a detective/gadgateer and his kid sidekick

Johnny Reb

Other ideas could be more idealistic sounding names since they view themselves as noble and just.

Also, ideas based around specific states that were apart of the South.

Names borrowed from historical figures might also work.

If they are specifically racist, concepts from the Klan could work.

If they are purely political and not specifically racist, you could throw a little shock and awe by tossing in an African American into the crowd.

I'm from Oklahoma.  Oklahoma was still the Indian Territory at the time, but many of the Indian tribes were as divided over the North vs South sides especially the Choctaws and the Cherokees, my tribe.  Also, I have known people in real life who consider themselves Confederate.  I will try to recollect what I know and see if I can come up with more ideas.

One of the Fantasy Hero books, I think, I can't remember which one, had a spell that turned the ground into an adhesive mire in a large area, dramatically slowing anyone passing through it.  As I recall, it was built as a Constant Entangle with a Limitation that it only reduced movement to 1"/2m per Phase instead of completely immobilizing anyone in it.

With that in mind, you could expand by having it work on more movement categories and maybe some additional mutual Protective Resistance to simulate attacks being slowed down and losing their impact.  In retrospect, maybe, making it a kind of Barrier built along the same principles as that Constant Entangle you mentioned.

If the intent of the power is to slow things down, would some kind of entangle combined with area effect resistance be a way to go?

I think I would go with the Change Environments approach and use the space-time continuum (STC) manipulation aspect as just an FX.  On a similar note, I once created a character that used STC to enhance his movements.  I gave the character two Flight powers.  One was a surface only Flight and the other was a gliding only Flight with the affect that he wasn't truly going faster but the universe was going slower FX.

You could give him various aid powers based on Persuasion or some similar skill that enhances attributes like OCV, DCV, Ego, Con, and Presence to cause them to fight better and make them more able to stand up to physical and psychological pressure.

Bernie McSquashbottoms, but seriously, just about any military or weapons sounding name would.  Here are some ideas: The Armsmaster, Colonel Commando, the Expert, Doctor Howitzer are possibilities.  Of course if you have a theme in mind or a particular service that he was in maybe you could some research for some names.

I think it comes down to magnitude.  How much fire can Pyro control vs how much fire Human Torch can produce?  I am not really a fan of the X-Men; so, I don't know Pyro's levels of control, but I was huge fan of the Fantastic Four, and the Human Torch is pretty much one of the Earth's most powerful heroes even if he doesn't get much credit.  I don't think Pyro even comes close to being of Earth's most powerful villains; so, it seems to me that the Human Torch should win in the end.

The size would also depend on who is actually showing up.  If everyone are friends and team players who are careful not to step on each others toes, a large group might not be so bad, but I would want to use some sort of rule of order.  I wouldn't want to go full Robert's, but I would place a lot of importance on keeping things orderly, but for me, I would prefer 4-6 as optimal under most circumstances.

You could just put something in the character's backstory that whatever event gave the character his powers hasn't finished it transformation yet.  Perhaps, you could choose to wait to buy adjustments after dramatic events in the overall adventure such being exposed to strange energies and/or chemicals, after humiliating defeats, or victories by the skin of his teeth type activities.  If the campaign uses a lot of subplots, stressors from both good and bad emotional events could trigger a power spurt or something.

I am working as a substitute teacher while finishing college and do a lot of work in special needs children and may be getting a promotion to teaching assistant in a special needs classroom this upcoming school year.  This makes me no expert in dealing with special needs or even a great champion of special needs, but I am knowledgeable of special needs and sympathetic towards those who have special needs, and I am wondering how a special needs super hero might be built.  It seems to be more than just simply giving a character a low Intelligence besides since Intelligence as I understand it per Hero is an indication of how perceptive and quick on the uptake a character is not necessarily a reflection of smarts, some special needs might technically have a high Intelligence but may be limited in its usage.

It seems to me that special needs should be physical complication in most cases to reflect it being an actual brain impairment, but in some cases, it might be a social complication also.  An example might be a higher function MR with slurred speech and a dull expression being mistaken for being drunk or high.  I have notice that many children with signs of learning disabilities (LD) and mental retardation (MR) also come from highly dysfunctional backgrounds sometimes having experienced negligence and abuse at extreme levels, and I hypothesize that some LD and MR might a psychological response to trauma.  In which case, a psychological complication might be more relevant.  (If anyone has come across any research regarding the issue, I would appreciate letting me know about.)

Does anyone have any ideas on how they might create a special needs character.

As far as taking a point away, I wouldn't take it away from the players as a group.  Usually, disruption is only being done by one or two players at a time, while other players are quietly simmering on the side so as to not cause trouble.  I would not take away the point from the group but only from the individuals causing the disruption.  Further, I tend to be a softy at heart; so, I am unlikely to take points away at the first infraction, but I just don't like players who use gaming as an excuse for social bullying and overall piggishness.  As a player, I have wanted to leave games where such things happened, and for my part, I prefer GMs that simply allow such shenanigans to continue without them doing something, and as a GM, I would like to run my game the way I would it it ran as a player.  That is, I want it ran a where players who want to play are actively encouraged and players who only want show their asses at the expense of everyone else are actively discouraged.  I suppose I could just simply disinvite the asses, but I like to give people a chance to change before I kick them to curb.  After all, someone of the asses might simply not know any better and creating an environment that promotes change could be good for them in the long run.