dean day

Oh I agree with all your points, totally, I am lucky in that my group is small (4 players) and very stable (10 years) so i know them very well. The point of this thread is just as much for me than them. It's because I want to use as much of the material that I have for supers games as I can in the coming campaign and I have roughly a year or so to prepare so its a great thought project. Obviously I know I am never going to use all these characters in the campaign but it's fun to try to include them in a unified setting that makes some sense even as deep background for myself which my players will only stumble across when they need to. I love your point about minor powers had not thought about that really but its a fantastic way of showing again they are not in the real world, will have a think about that.

Thank you for the Freedom City stats, I agree its probably best to just eye ball characters when moving systems. What i intend to do very slowly, is go book by book I will start with the Champions 2nd edition rules and decide on what characters make the cut and make my own version in Hero Designer..

Yep, I have it and tried doing a campaign with it. My players prefer a robust and detailed experience system, so despite the game being amazing in lots of ways it failed in that respect for them. But the setting is great fun so i will be drawing lots of characters from it. Not got that one, who are the hero characters? the Champions?

I have Watchers of the Dragon, a very underrated book in my opinion. Oh i love the Protectors they are amazing. Oh i dimly remember the Millennium city 8 ok I will pick them up from Drivethru. I also remember really liking Darren Watts group he was posting in digital hero over a few issues, they were a great Avengers homage I remember and also a FF homage but dont remember what issues they were spread over now. I have Allies but dont remember anyone standing out for me I will have another look. I dont have the Canadian and UK books are they worth picking up? I have Champions Worldwide.

My players are all very different types, but to be honest I am very lucky with them as they have got good engagement levels and the one guy that didn't has improved lots over the years, but they will all need a lot of hand holding with hero. I agree with you that the best way would be build their characters for them for sure, then slowly get them into the wonders of the system. Regarding the fictional cities I dont plan to base the campaign in any of them, instead they are there for flavor to say this is a different reality from their own world and that will reinforce that. I am a Brit that lived in London many years and we all live on the outskirts of London now so will probably be using London as a home base as they know the city well. But I see the campaign as a globe trotting one eventually so they will hopefully have adventures all over, so the fictional cities are more a backdrop. Your point about alien invasions is exactly the kind of thing I want to flesh out before play so the game and setting has a detailed pre game history I can use for future adventures but also for them to dig into slowly. I know my guys well, the key is not to overwhelm them at first but have the history in the background and slowly let them dig into it as the campaign continues, they love that. But i need to know the answers in detail for when those questions will come. You make some really good points about getting rid of the the real cities. You have persuaded me to keep them alongside the fictional ones. I dont think Freedom City is a direct New York replacement but its for sure along the eastern coast somewhere. Thank you so much for the Freedom City stats thats a great help, yes I would love your stats for other characters, that would be amazing.

Superhero Groups Have never been impressed with many of the 5th/6th edition superhero groups in the champions setting, I much preferred the older ones in previous editions. and again I understand my players characters are the most important and will use them sparingly as allies/rivals but as I said previously I want to build a dynamic, big, robust supers setting so I need quite a few groups spread around the world filling different niches and roles. Ones I will be definitely using are the following The Guardians Always liked the cryptic references to these guys in previous old editions. I know their were some threads building them in 5th/6th edition. Strike Force & Shadow Warriors My favorite rpg hero team of all time bar none. Will be using both groups for sure. The Protectors my 2nd favorite of all time from the adventure "To Serve and Protect". Very well thought out supers team with each character being unique. The Atom Family Love this homage to the Fantastic Four will be using them and converting them over. The Next-Gen Another great group from M&M kind of a mash up of Titans/X-Men, I love the Claremont academy that goes along side it. The Freedom League Freedom Cities fun JLA homage has a cool set of powerful characters and history, tick, used. The Tiger Squad I do like the concept of this 5th edition team and I know a few characters have been stated for 5th/6th. Being the official Chinese team they would get a lot of use as potential antagonists and well as allies. I like the concept of most bigger nations having their own government team. What heroic teams do you like from rpg fiction? what NPC teams do you use in your campaign and why? teams of your own creation or are you using teams from setting material?

Just my personal preference to replace them, It tells my players they are not in Kansas anymore lol. I will look at Paradise City thank you.

I had chosen to use them, I was asking more for advice about which cities they should each replace.

Fictional US Cities or Real US Cities One of my first decisions will be if I use my fictional city us source books or not? I have a lot of these, Millennium city, Hudson City, Vibora Bay, San Angelo, Freedom City, Emerald City, I may have more but these come to mind. I want to use them as this goes along with the main tenant of using as much of my material as possible, also I always liked the DC idea of fictional cities. I want the PC group to have adventures worldwide or at least at a national level so they would see some use. the real decision point is to have the fictional cities to exist AS WELL As the real cities or to effectively replace a city on a case by case basis. I think I will go with replacing cities so not to spike the US population and also it makes the campaign world more unique and says this is a different reality. My question to you guys then is what cities should they each replace? I am a bit fuzzy on the details without a reread but I think of the top of my head the following possibilities. Millennium City i know is a pretty much direct rebuild of Detroit so that ones a given. Hudson City - is this a Chicago analogue? is that reasonable? Vibora Bay - I know is a southern city is New Orleans a good choice for replacement? San Angelo - I know is southern California is it big enough to replace LA or a smaller city instead? Freedom City - I know is the east coast maybe Boston? Emerald City - West Coast again, more north I think, San Francisco? I know there is also Empire City for silver age sentinels which I think is a more of less direct analogue of New York but not sure how much material there is for it, but I find that quite cool. Are there any more supers cities that have been done that I dont own? I have heard of one called Bedlam City I think and I think there were one or two for Heroes Unlimited. Any others? what are your thoughts about which cities should replace what?

Thank you for replying sir, Yes, i dont want to overdo the population shift but make it feel like their is a dynamic world of supers outside the US at least. You are right it would make sense for a lot of mid tier and low tier villains at least to stay OUT of the USA and its much higher concentration of super heroes and teams to foil them. I definitely want a global force of some kind and also the major nations having their own governmental groups dealing with supers. I have not decided from my material yet which groups (UNTIL/PRIMUS/AEGIS) and I also have a lot of con X material I love which has secret government groups such as the Black Book vs Aegis (that name again!) but yes I do want a Nick fury like organisation or three running round but probably make most of them work in their own national interests so I can often have them work in direct opposition to the pc's rather than always act as straight allies (I was always very fond of the Henry Peter Gyrich character in marvel and how he made the Avengers lives a misery). I will absolutely be using VIPER as it is one of my favorite parts of the Champions setting and almost is so important to not use it would be a crime and although I have not read them for many a year I own both the 4th and 5th edition VIPER source books so will be looking at those closely as to what bits I want. I want a few villainous organisations and another I will be using for sure is ARGENT always liked them. Regarding master villains, I think this is where Champions shines and I will be using both Doctor Destroyer and Mechanon for sure but will be dialing back on their personal power levels hugely as in my opinion post 4th edition they almost became so powerful as to be unusable for most campaigns , especially starting ones. They can still have all their resources at their disposal, i just want my pc's to have at least a chance against them in a end of adventure fight! M&M also has some great master villains I will probably port over as well. I do want some marvel style mutant worries but dial it way back so it does not dominate the campaign landscape. More in the style of 1980's X-Men comics rather than how it exploded in the last thirty years. I am quite interested in getting the new Institute for Human Advancement source book (i was never impressed with the old supplement on mutants the mutant file, but maybe I should reread it I am sure it has some gems) But I suppose how much the Mutant question will impact my campaign depends if any of my players pick mutant as an origin? As regards mystical/magical villains I was always very partial to Dark Seraph and the crowns of Krim. I own a lot of your work on the mystical side of the setting but never given it a deep read, are there any mystical threats you particularly recommend? not sure about DEMON I think i would prefer to use more Cthulhu like cults, but not sure yet. I do for sure want the Circle from 3rd edition to be a part of the setting and be the premier hero group for mystical shenanigans, always loved those guys and they had a clear purpose within the setting which was great for a hero group. Yep i love me some Strike Force. I am no way at the stage yet for individual starting adventures, I suppose I will decide on those once they have characters in place. What I want to do is build a setting using the majority of my super rpg material which is a huge amount lol. Do you use parts of the champions universe? and if so which bits and why?

Lord Liaden, thank you so much for taking the time to right such a detailed reply! really appreciated. Fleshing things out as much as I can is probably as much for my own benefit as well as for them, but i am super aware that some players in my group will be throwing all sorts of questions at me about background and setting when we start so I have learned to be prepared. Especially as i have fought over the years to get a supers campaign to the table, I want to make sure they are impressed and find the setting I create both fun and detailed and make sense logically. Regarding the 5th edition champions setting as the basis for the campaign as a whole, yes I agree whole heartedly but there are many pieces from pre 5th edition i love that were not carried over for some reason to 5th (Zodiac, VOICE, The Protectors, The Blood, The Circle, Nearly all of Strike Force come instantly to mind.) I have never been enamored of the 5th edition heroes much, especially the hero teams, Yes I know my players are the main heroes yadah, yadah, but I will need strong hero npcs to reflect to them the kind of supers world they are used to watching (DC/Marvel) I have always felt the champions universe was always so much stronger in the villains department than the hero side, so I will need to do a lot of work there, luckily however M&M is strong here as was Silver Age Sentinels and Sentinels Comics so I have options, especially if I use a lot of the Strike Force material as well. I do own most of the 6th edition supers line I think including the three villain books and the Champions genre book (which I think is an outstanding product) so will have a read of that regarding populations and demographics and make some decisions and post, thank you for the advice. The hero in two pages sounds like an excellent idea, I have a player who is very hit and miss with systems, if he gets into it quickly he is a champion of that system and gets system mastery, but if he does not get into it quickly he glazes over and shrugs and its very hard to get him interested after, what makes this worse if its a negative reaction is that he is a leader within the group so the others often follow his opinions, so i have to lay the ground work carefully with him for the hero system. Thanks once again for your interest and time, i hope you can keep giving me advice!

Yes, I agree totally, one thing in my favor though regarding hunteds is that my players will give me queue's about what kind of things they want in their background, but slowly, they are not the type of players to immediately write up a background story, instead this will be fleshed out with time so Hunted's will be kept open and fill out with play so I have options there.

Superhero Population and Demographics Decisions I suppose my first decision is basically how many supers there are and where they are? and a sub decision of what qualifies as a super in the first place. well lets define that first. What counts as being a "Super" I dont want to define it to narrowly, but in my own terms from a GM, i want to include everyone counting as a super that is capable and likely to be potentially included in combat. So I would still include in MY superhero population anyone that is competing on training alone or equipment or gadgets or a combination of. At this point I am not worried about where their "powers" or combat capability came from, but more the fact I can use them as friends or foes of my players characters. I do want to define where certain power and character types come from I think that is very important for flavor but not yet. Where are they? Although growing up on the whole USA is where 90% of supers come from or live is fine, I do want to shift that a bit, where most small or medium countries most probably have a a few supers each. I dont only want one in Poland, one in new Zealand etc. I do like the idea that some countries have more than normal though outside of pure population models, like United Kingdom, Egypt, Japan etc, all for valid reasons and that would be reflected in the type of super that country generates, so using those examples again UK and Egypt would have a much larger number of mystical or magical supers, and Japan a lot more tech or mutation origin supers. Are there any good discussions in books that you know of about distribution or maybe threads here? How many? I want a large campaign as I want to use most of the material I have got and also its just more fun. What would be a good population percentage on average? I want to give the impression to the players that in the present day their are lots of supers running around, with a definite slant towards evil rather than good, and that has built up steadily over time, but there be concrete reasons as to why this has happened, i.e. every super type or power has a finite number of reasons as to where these supers have come from. I wonder how many characters I actually have in published material for champions M&M and other games?

Hi guys, I have been running and playing in rpgs a long time, since i was eleven! I am in my early fifties now and champions was one of my first games I played long term through my school years along with Runequest and D&D. I look back to that childhood campaign with much affection, such early scenarios as Viper's Nest remain very much in my consciousness. I played all the way through 4th edition and then came back to the game during 5th edition for a while. My current group however (of about 10 years now) where always much more into fantasy and science fiction games than supers, as none of them were comic readers. However over the last ten years this has slowly changed as the Marvel cinematic universe and to a lesser extent the DC tv series have slowly got them interested in a campaign. We a couple of years ago played Sentinel comics for a bit but that stumbled long term due to not really having a robust experience system (my group loves experience systems if its a long term campaign). We are currently playing Warhammer fantasy 4th edition and will probably play that for another year, but I would really love to finally play a long term supers campaign using the hero system so I can finally make use of all the supers rpg material I own. I have a lot.... Champions material from 2nd to 4th edition Nearly the whole run of 5th edition Nearly everything mutants and masterminds has published a smattering of villains & vigilantes Lots of Icons material silver age sentinels sentinels comics rpg and other bits and pieces from other games like heroes unlimited. What I want to do is make the most of this material i have in my home and finally make use of it! I would like your help in making all this material into one overall kick arse supers setting for my players to play in long term. I also have many other games of different genres that I would like to add bits from, games that comes to mind is Conspiracy X and Call of Cthulhu. what I would like to do with this thread is work out a way how to incorporate elements from all this material and jettison what does not work. Here are my aims with this campaign and this thread. 1. Set up a campaign for long term supers play, with enough depth and breath to keep my players entertained and wanting more. 2. Relearn the game. I am choosing 5th edition revised as that was my most recent version and one I am at least semi comfortable with. I dont want to learn 6th, I have it but I am firmly in the camp of figured characteristics basing of primary ones, maybe its because I played 2nd edition onwards but It was always a part of the game i loved. I know the arguments about going to 6t, but its not going to happen so no point trying to persuade me on this thread. I dont want it descending into edition wars, though I would love advice on builds as i relearn 5th. 3. I want to keep builds pretty lean and simple much more 3rd and 4th edition style builds rather than 5th and 6th builds. Partly for me as relearn the game but mainly for my players who have never played hero and I dont want to scare off straight away with huge complicated sheets, they are all system mastery guys, so I will let them redesign as they go as they learn. 4. Use all the bloody material I have. This is maybe the most important point for this thread where I need help. I DO want to use most of the material but i obviously realize that much of it will be not needed and redundant and choices will be have to be made. I am looking for your long experience about good and bad setting elements in champions history and how to incorporate other settings into the material. 5. My players are most comfortable or rather have most knowledge in the mainstream DC/Marvel universes, so i want my setting to hit all those beats first up, but I also want to make it a bit darker with elements of horror, conspiracy, science fiction and even fantasy gaming material into the mix, but at it core I want them to feel they understand the setting and its meta rules of superheroes. 6. Help me with hero designer, i have bought it but mot used it yet. I also have Realm Works but not sure how useful that will be for a supers campaign, so am looking for help and advice on how to record and keep straight all the info and characters, places organisations I will be using to make sure the campaign is as easy to run long term as possible. How do I use hero designer to do this? are there other sites or programs out there that would be super useful. 7. Time travel being a strong aspect of the campaign. As I am going to use all this great setting material I want the players to come across it, I have a feeling that time travel should incorporate into the campaign somehow so not all these supers I am putting into the campaign are active now maybe a more even spread of characters over the last 60 years and a big WW2 campaign bolt on and Victorian bolt on so I can use all that great era material and then give me a chance to build up some great heroic legacies into the present day. Sorry for the long start to the thread, but I have a year or so to prepare and I want to make it the best campaign I have ever run and if i get it right the last one as well. I humbly request everyone to give me as much help and advice as possible in a detailed way on setting elements, groups, places, individuals, things, builds to make it hit all those goals I am after. Dean

I wish there was just a leadership skill lol. I might just work on this as a house rule.

There is no Leadership skill, so how would you simulate the really great comic leaders who have a real effect on combat for their teams? please give me some ideas how to model this.

Can anyone let me know what the differences between each product is? is the text rewritten for the 6th edition version extensively or is it more a cut and paste with just edition specifics updated?

I always liked Find Weakness, it always screamed the Inhuman character Karnak to me.

Hey guys, I am just starting to prepare a new superhero campaign and despite owning seemingly dozens of superhero games, none quite do what I want, so I am going to run 5th edition hero. I do have 6th but some of the stuff was a dealbreaker for me (specifically losing the connection between primary and figured characteristics which i love!) I am probably most comfortable with 5th edition, but I wanted to know what is easy to grab from 6th edition that you would recommend for a supers game? I am open to anything big or small which you think can be easily added to 5th, if its just more detail, or new powers, advantages, limitations, skills, etc. I know that the disadvanatge system got renamed, is there anything I can port over there as well? Any feedback would be great.

This for a long time was one of my go to sites for champions, I noticed its still active, but not had an update since 2006. Does anyone know why it has not been updated for such a long time? Is there anywhere else that hero write ups get compiled on the net?