Help for running Super Heroes game

[jollyninja]

I have still never found an equal for the d20 silver age sentinals for sheer ability to do any concept a player can come up with. problem is guardians of order went under so it's a bit hard to find. Of all the supers d20 books, it's the one i thought had the most customizability. The one group I ran had a scientist/jiucer who had invented chemicals to pump himself up at the beginning of a fight but most of the time was just in fairly good shape, a guy who could jump to the moon and was quite durable and a high school jock with a paddle and a strength somewhere around 70. The last one was my favorite just because of his name "the paddler" over a year later it still makes me laugh. I was running in marvel new york, hells kitchen to be precise. i find that using a real city is nice just because of google earth. what's at the othr end of that alley? Oh, two dumpsters, and i think it's a cat lol

whada ya know,
http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Age-Se...ef=pd_lpo_k2_dp_k2a_2_img/002-1013467-4040062

surprised they still have it

 

[00Machado]

I also recommend the Dark Champions material, especially Predators and Hudson City.

Apart from the comics, I recommend watching The Batman, and Batman The Animated Series cartoons to mine for ideas, and reading the comics (and similar themed comics, like Nightwing, etc.)

A lot of plots can be re-used. Instead of stealing the xyz from the cartoon, Penguin tries to steal the abc that you made up, and so on.

I'd talk to the players and ask if they prefer the feel of gotham, or the Batman's rogues gallery? Do they want to be like him and have villains come back? If they do, they need to have a code against killing. Also, it let's you know whether you should use the rogues gallery, or make up your own. I anticipate they'll want the rogues gallery (otherwise, why play in gotham), but you never know. If they don't want to use the rogues gallery, then maybe moving the game to a different city that's not gothem will give it more room to become it's own. Hudson City, or Hybora Bay from the Champions line would be good choices, I think.

Some gaming related sources for adventure ideas:
Dark Champions 4e and Dark Champions the Animated Series 5e
M&M Freedom City 1e (since you don't plan to use the rules, the capers present in 1e - mostly for Raven's rogues gallery) that are not in 2e are the adventure ideas I'm talking about)
Hudson City 4e and 5e
You might consider a pulp book like M&M Golden Age, Pulp Hero, Masterminds and Madmen (also hero) or something like that, for rogues gallery and street level ideas. I find that a lot of the ideas in these are suitable for a masked street crusader supers game as well.

Rogues Gallery
Hero books
Underworld Enemies 4e
Murderer's Row 4e
Dark Champions 4e
Dark Champions the Animated Series 5e
Mutants and Masterminds books
M&M Freedom City 1e
M&M 1e

Structuring a supers campaign
If you can find it, I recommend buying a used copy of Aaron Allston's strike force off of Amazon, or ABE. It is a great esource for explaining how to develop and pace a supers game.
The AD&D DM design kit is also great for the framework it provides to help GMs put together their ideas briefly into an adventure of comic book pacing length.

If you wanted to do something that felt like a TV series (searching for Batman, for example), I think the Running Emmy Winning Campaigns by Robin Laws in an old Dragon, and watching the animated series' are good resources.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

What would Gotham be like if Batman never existed at all?

Actually, the cops would probably have gunned down the Joker and Penguin a long time ago, thus saving many lives that were lost because Bats keeps on capturing them. This is, of course, a problem with most super heroes, which is why even the most psycopathic villains hardly ever killed anyone in the 50s-70s.

 

[DragonLancer]

And if the Batman was to vanish like this, do you think the GCPD would return to that style of dealing with problems?

 

[Stormborn]

And if the Batman was to vanish like this, do you think the GCPD would return to that style of dealing with problems?

First I doubt that police would do that as matter of policy. If policy is to shoot to kill those engaged in violent crime you soon have cops shooting every kid that robs the Quickymart with a toy gun. While that does happen occasionally, public out cry is great if it was policy their would be riots and I dont think that most cops would agree to it anyway. Without marshall law it would not be the normal behavior of any police force in the US. Thats in the real world. In the moral atmosphere of the DCU, and with Jim Gordon in charge, I dont think it would happen in Gotham either. Regardless of what happens the GCPD is not going in with shoot to kill orders. Plus you have the added complication that alot of these costumed types, while they may not seem to be metas, have a nasty habit of survivng all manner of things. Even if the police on one occasion got forced into a situation where they had to gun down Joker, how soon does his body disappear and he turns up back on the street? (Hmmm...Joker as a Zombie King who has realized that Death is the ultimate Joke.)

Now on the other hand, if some goverment agency labels the colorful violent offenders as Terrorists and has the support of a newly elected anti-crime mayor you could have a group of Feds operating in Gotham hunting costumes, including your PCs, with deadly intent and Gordon being forced to cooperate (but willing to offer the heroic PCs some subtle assistance on occasion once they prove themselves).

 

[teitan]

Unless you have the DEO sourcebooks and the Magic sourcebook I would definitely NOT suggest using the DCU game to run with. The system has breakdown issues once you go beyond Teen Titans levels. The system is very sound in theory but it doesn't execute as well as it should at times. Try Blood of Heroes or the MEGS DC stuff or Mutants & Masterminds as both systems have DC write-ups and Marvel write-ups are easy to find as well for M&M. If you ask at the Atomic Thinktank someone can give you a link to the DCU Animated sourcebook for your DC Heroes stats in M&M and the conversion to 2e is easy as the transition from AD&D1 to 2.

 

[DragonLancer]

I have the DCU books, and I'm picking up the Magic one end of the month when i get paid.