ICONS - Team of superhero geeks - adventure ideas?

[Herobizkit]

ok, so after talking with my 30's player, he wants to do more of a traditional detective/private dick story more like Dick Tracy. Darn.

So now I've moved the setting into 1930's Chicago and modeled the character's starting area after the Gold Coast, with one major difference. It's in ruin.

Through some destructive force (probably fire, flood, or oil spill, or all three), the "mansions, row houses, and high-rise apartments" became abandoned by the rich and taken over by the poor. Now, as the city's robot-building industry is running full-steam, places to live are becoming extremely expensive; more and more people are being forced to move to this area. Meanwhile, the rich have set up shop on the other side of the city, away from all of the pollution and noise.

The detective wants to set up shop in this area. I've decided that his neighborhood (as randomly determined with the help of d20 Modern's Urban Arcana) has his private eye office set up in an old train station. Not much else around him, but neighboring hoods will have places of interest.

Still sticking with Bioshock's bent towards high-technology, so there will be computers (but no 'internet' - probably intrAnet though) and robot police.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Sounds kind of Big O-ish.

Perhaps the destructive force was a military accident involving one of the portals? Like the plotline of The Mist, they opened a portal to the wrong place and something nasty got through...

Or, more Machiavellian, there was really nothing- it was a staged accident like a "mustard gas leak" or some such to get people to move out while the Gov't built its secret portal research installation, and the higher-income types never moved back.




(BTW, sucks that he changed his PC concept on you like that.)

 

[Herobizkit]

The player describes his character as being similar to Rorschach - a conspiracy theorist who believes everything is connected and will go to any ridiculous length to prove it. His power are almost an afterthought, as the character has no idea what to DO with them.

Well, here's a rough draft of what I have in store for him. I'm not a very strong mystery writer, so this may look pretty contrived.

• lady comes in, worried about her husband who has been missing for a few days.
• lady is waiting to collect on husband's life insurance; she seduces a 'dirty cop' to bump the husband off and make it look accidental.
• once she collects, she'll leave the slums and 'move on up' to the rich area of the city.
• the husband learns of her plot; husband convinces the dirty cop to flip on her by offering some 'inside information' about a project that's going to give him a big payday.
• dirty cop returns to lady, likes having her to mess around with - calls in heavy hitter [robot thug] to eliminate husband.
• dirty cop plans to kill lady once she's paid and take it all for himself.

Enter the hero.

I plan to have a few places for the hero to visit - the local pub, a tech repair shop, and what was once a motel. Some NPCs. Each place will have a tidbit of information.

The kicker will be that the husband is also in possession of a punch card (60's PCs!). When put into a proper reader, it will give a hint into a company's latest project.

Thoughts?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Why did hubby go missing in the first place? Because he found out of the plot and is hiding out? Floozy on the side? Selling secrets? Mental illness? Visiting a love child from earlier in his life? Serial killer?

You want to know because your players will want to.

 

[Herobizkit]

I say that the husband went into hiding because of the punch card he took from the Corp; that his wife also wants him dead is coincidental.

My only question is whether to have the hero find the husband dead or under attack by the robot assassin.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

So the punch card is the MacGuffin. Plenty of ways to forge one with dummy holes or make legit copies, and even more places to hide them. Good.

I vote for having him under attack...and have him escape, too. He doesn't know who his allies are, and so, bu letting him run, you not only have a Maczguffin, but one that is being moved around and/or hidden by a smart, paranoid NPC.

That means that he may be more valuable alive than dead.

 

[Herobizkit]

The 30's detective has a super-suite of detection powers, including darkvision, infravision, and x-ray vision. This husband fella won't be able to hide for long... but that's great, because the player will likely give chase.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Just a minor point...you know that in the 1930s, there was still widespread use of lead-based paint, especially on exteriors. Probably not enough to thwart x-ray vision, but perhaps enough to distort/fog it.

Don't use it to screw the player, but rather, give verisimilitude to the power within the setting. The x-ray vision will function fine in most interior spaces and through brick walls, but looking through the brightly painted walls of a residential area won't be as precise.

And, of course, it lays the groundwork for similar effects as he visits other realms in the campaign. Modern settings might seem to be full of glass houses to him; a future setting with exotic materials may be highly variable.