Mutant & Mastermind settings

[Gilwen]

I can't wait until Paragons and the Book of Magic is out.

Gil

 

[Karl Green]

Is there any way to run a HEROES "type" setting without completely ripping off the show, and making it exciting for the players. A lot of players play superheroe RPGs for the powers, and if you just had 1 power, and weren't proficient in it, that could make for a bored player or a boring game. That would be my main concern. Ordinary people with Extraordinary powers works well on TV and the big screeen, but how well does that translate in a game setting?

Right now I am running something like HEROES, where the players made up normal people in the modern age, where no supers have appeared before (at least the players all believed they were the first) and then 'gained' powers. Here is a bit of the run down...

OMEGA AWAKING ‘Secret Supers Game’

“Secret Supers Game” Inspired by USA’s “4400”, NBC’s “Heroes” and a bit of the old game systems by Pinnacle “Brave New World” and WW “Aberrant”.

The world is pretty much Earth, 2007 with no strangeness or super powered people. At least that is what everyone thinks. The player characters have all recently had near death experiences and walked away (or awoken up later in the hospital) with amazing powers. This has only happened in the last couple of weeks before the game officially starts. Each has been having weird dreams that they can’t remember and have the feeling that they are being watched. No one has “gone public” all fearing what would happen if the world knows they are different. As far as they know they are the only ‘powered’ people around.

There is only one origin for all powers.

What’s going on?
One man, Marcus Krisztal, a man born in the year 3000 (or something), has gone back in time to manipulate mankind and create the perfect ‘human’ of the future… him! He has gone back as far as the pre-Homo Sapient time, and then leapfrogged through time, tweaking his work here and there, ‘disposing’ of those that disappoint him, helping those that show promise. He calls this grand scheme the “Omega Awakening” with himself being the Omega or “Last Man” on Earth.

Now others from the future have started to realize what Marcus has been doing, as it has started to disrupt their time period, and they have gone back and started trying to undue the genetic manipulations that he has been imposing on humanity. There are two groups right now… one that want to ‘save’ those that have been changed and restore them to normalcy while the other group is out to destroy them before they affect the future. Of course this also is having an affect on the future, but they think the damage can be contained, while ‘post-Omega’ there is nothing they can do and the future would be doomed anyway.

Occasionally ‘powered’ people have appeared throughout time, but have always been written up as legends, myths and superstitions. They have never had a great impact on the world or history as those others from the future have ‘stopped’ them before they have gone to far amok.

Recently, Marcus’s experiments on the genetic levels of humanity has started too have real affects in the present day (it started just before the turn of the century and has started to get worst by 2007). Marcus’s latent genes are getting very powerful and the shared collective unconscious of humanity along with multiple time manipulations have “pushed” certain people during times of extreme stress (like a near death experience) to “activate” their latent potential.

So suddenly the players have all started displaying powers and the group that seeks to ‘destroy’ the Omegas (what they call meta-humanity) has detected the players and is searching for them.

Marcus is also been interested in the affects of his experiments and wishes to ‘test’ his latest creations to see if they are worthy of his blessings.

There are a few other Omegas out there at this time and one of them who’s abilities are reanimating the dead. These dead have strange abilities also, depending on how they died.

Government agents also know something is “up” as they have been infiltrated by the two groups from the future and Marcus himself (through various manipulations of people from the past and disciples of his from the future). They are now also seeking the Omegas.

My first game arch is going to be fate drawing all the players together, where there was an explosion at Pike's Place Market in downtown Seattle. Some of the players were in the area and were caught up in the accident. Agents of Homeland Security arrived almost immediately and start securing the site, and some of the characters, using their powers in what they thought were subtle ways start drawing agent attentions as they have little belt clips that seem to chirp whenever a player users their powers nearby. They also ‘sense’ the other super-powered people around them and a few talk. Turns out a 12 year old kid caused the explosion and is under some rubble and so they rescue him, only to have to turn him over to the Homeland security agents.

A couple of the players also see some strange looking cyborg that seems to blink in and out of existence and shots them with little needles that then vanish instantly along with the cyborgs.

Those players who did not come to the explosion start getting strange calls from someone calling himself ‘Predator’ who is a psychic vampire, who gains extra vitality and strength when he sucks up Omega powers which he has just done two days ago for the first time (and realizes that there are others out in the world like him). Also, lots of strange break in and feelings like they are being watched.

The next step is that they are all going to get captured by Federal Agents and ‘tested’. They will escape and flee to a place they have heard of called Sanctuary. All of this has been orchestrated by Marcus who wishes to ‘test’ his newest ‘forefather/children’ to see if they are worthy or not.

The long term plans of the game depend somewhat on what path the players what to go, but the ‘good’ group from the future will eventually make contact with them and help them stop both Marcus and the evil ‘future’ group who want to destroy them at all costs.

Thats the basic plot of my game

 

[Graf]

This is a weird thing to say but...
It sounds like you want to play Capes...

I've never played it, I don't own the book, but troup based play where people take turns running scenes and characters basically describes Capes (from what I've read anyway).

Are you guys really into "rules heavy/high-crunch" games?

 

[Ben Robbins]

Capes is cool (and by cool I mean groundbreakingly interesting) but it is a very different thing than running a normal RPG with a rotating GM.

Capes has no GM, no set adventure just whatever emerges from the scenes as each participant takes a turn picking the next one, players pick whatever roles they want to play in each scene (including what would normally be considered the heroes, the villains, random innocent bystanders, everybody), etc.

I liked it, but I wouldn't do it all the time. It's a different beast than a normal GM + Players game.

 

[buzz]

What, no love for BlackWyrm's Algernon Files universe?

http://www.blackwyrm.com/