sweet!
I've checked out the tropes, but the threads there tend to get jumbled. Good site, definitely (how do people find out about this stuff?!)
I'm trying to think of how to ground it in a Supers campaign, with The City as the basic foundation of the game. I'm designing a city-unit map that works for between-plot heroics; based loosely on the Arkham Horror game, which I sampled recently with a friend, it should allow a group to get some experience on random rescues and heists before the real action kicks in for the plot line of the story. Also, if it works, I should be able to sow clues for the actual adventure using it. And get a tighter rein on more wiley player characters (or at least their trouble-causing players!)
Anyway, I like the 3 locations idea. Reminds me of Star Wars, for sure, which has the 3 Planets rule. That said, the Incredibles had basically 3 locations, though only one of them had most of the action: the home, the Island, the City. Although, really, you could argue that the Villain's Lair Complex, the Island Wilderness, and The City were the real 3 locations. Oh well.
The Agency looks sweet; I need to free up space/get a hard drive to read it, tho.
I've also decided that any Supers game should have LOCATIONS as a threat of some sort: outer space is an environmental hazard; high above the city has the hazard of falling; inside a volcano; deep beneath the Earth; sand worm deserts.
The reason being that there has to be some reason the group stays together, being that going it alone should be suicide. Also, villains should have some kind of threat that keeps the PCs from simply exploding everything with massive powers.
I guess also there should be "the Henchman/Dragon" character, the "mooks"... and somewhere the Base is set up to keep that spy vs. spy feeling. Also a Doomsday Weapon would seem to be appropriate.
