Superhero Games

[bwgwl]

I know it's not that great an idea, or maybe I should say not as flashy an idea, but the thought of real-world people handling superpowers in real-world ways has always intrigued me.

have you ever read the Wild Cards books? they were an excellent treatment of this idea. (even if the series did get kinda goofy toward the last few books.)

i'm thinking that if i run a supers game (in the near future, hopefully!), i'd either set it in the Wild Cards universe or something much like it. (i even have the long OOP GURPS Wild Cards for reference.)

basing a campaign around the Vietnam War-era "Joker Brigades" would be cool.

 

[Neo]

In the last superhero Campaign I ran, the PC's were all exposed to Alien "Bioseeds" that were recovered from an alien crash by the British government. They discovered that the Bioseeds were a form of symbiote and that after an initial rather invasive and quite horrific appearing cocooning of a host the resultant being brthed of the cocoon had the thier DNA remapped integrating the alien DNA of the Bioseed, effectively allowing them to cause this organic chitin to cover them in a guyver'esque style. The heroes all varied slightly with each Bioseed altering each host in a different way (and thus explaining the variation in appearance) but all had the ability to call it over them as an organic looking armor, which provided limited life support and regeneration.

Later in the game the Heroes discovered that the Bioseeds were actually the method by which the aliens planned to take over the Earth, the first Bioseed found had taken over a government employee (who i'll refer to as the Prime) who then conveniently engineered the circumstances that brought about the discovery of the other bioseeds. Each "Meta-Mutant" created by the integration of a Bioseed was not just changed physically but mentally each holding the kill switch that would send them into a fury and allow the to be controlled by the Prime, this process of control begins to slowly kick in as soon as a bioseed intergrates with the host.
Thereby the prime under the cover of building a group of government controlled meta humans, could gain access to the resources and facilities necessary to create more in order to build the army he would need to take over the earth... once a host was intergrated he just had to bide his time until total control over them was his.

The PC's then had to find a method of removing this inherant control switch before it was too late, and while not giving the game away to the prime , who kept a close eye on thier activities.

Once they managed it of course the Prime covering his tracks arranged evidence to make it look like the Heroes had gone rogue, and thus they were huinted by the various government agencies, while trying to foil the Primes plans all the while.

It was quite good... the whole thing being a blending of ideas from various sources like the movies Species/Aliens, anime like guyver and so on...

 

[NLP]

I haven't had the chance to use this idea, but I always liked the idea of an elite military team, like a SEAL team, somehow getting powers, and then continuing to serve in the military. No spandex, no super-high-tech, just real guys wearing real uniforms using real-world technology.

There is a group mentioned in the new Champions Universe called Ameriforce One. They are basically all Navy Seals with super powers. Just regular Seal uniforms and Seal attitudes. They go in and get done what the regular Seals can't.

Each branch of the Military also has its own superheroes, as does the FBI, CIA, DEA, and Border Patrol. The new Champions Universe it just full of supers.

 

[MulhorandSage]

In the last campaign I played in (a low points Champions "Superhero High School" game) I played Peter Pan, exiled from Neverland by the triumphant Captain Hook.

Sorry folks. It was fun to play the perpetual kid who was always flying off in search of adventure, and who felt that rules weren't just made to be broken - it's a duty - and who annoyed the slacker teenaged supers who'd rather be shopping and dating by showing them what fun was all about.

Of course Pan's idea of fun were things like killing and torturing pirates and gathering stray children and encouraging them to rebel against their mothers (I was trying to be true to Barrie, not Disney), but there's nothing wrong with a little culture shock, is there?

Scott Bennie

 

[mmadsen]

I was trying to be true to Barrie, not Disney.

For anyone only familiar with the Disney version of Peter Pan, I recommend reading at least the first few paragraphs of Barrie's original work. They're...interesting:

http://www.literatureproject.com/peter-pan/peter-pan_1.htm

Chapter 1
PETER BREAKS THROUGH

All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.

Of course they lived at 14 [their house number on their street], and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there is was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.
...

 

[NeuroZombie]

I plan on running a Deeds Not Words campaign based the around the idea of a top-secret UN sponsored organization of supers called the C.O.R.E. (Contain - Observe - Rescue - Enforce) Directive whose job is to investigate and combat paranormal, superhuman and extraterestrial threats. Each team is semi-autonomous and functions as if they were individual super-teams in order to keep the existance of the Directive a secret.

I plan on putting info on my site (when I get my new version up) as a series of free .pdf's.

I'll post when I can get them finished.

 

[Teflon Billy]

I haven't had the chance to use this idea, but I always liked the idea of an elite military team, like a SEAL team, somehow getting powers, and then continuing to serve in the military. No spandex, no super-high-tech, just real guys wearing real uniforms using real-world technology. I know it's not that great an idea, or maybe I should say not as flashy an idea, but the thought of real-world people handling superpowers in real-world ways has always intrigued me. The device of making it a team of elite soldiers helps provide the basic premise - they're already a team, and their status as elite soldiers makes it more likely they'd be in situations where they could gain those powers.

Hav you taken alook at Godlike Colonel? Not really my cup of tea, but sounds right up your alley

I sort of am thinking about it as being in the same vein as the recently late, and greatly lamented, Starman.

Did they pull the plug on Starman? That's a shame, that was a well written, inventive title

 

[Welverin]

In addition to what bwgwl and T-Billy mentioned there was also a comic by Whilce Portacio in the mid ninties that did pretty much the same thing. I liked it at the time but it went down hill when Whilce had trouble getting it done (an earthquake where he lived IIRC) and oher people took over.

 

[alsih2o]

for humor-

i had a character in the marvel game who was the first successful borg vreated after 8 failed attampts. he was borg 9....."you can call me ernest"


lol, god i crack me up

 

[JoeBlank]

Did they pull the plug on Starman? That's a shame, that was a well written, inventive title

Starman was intended by the writer, James Robinson, to be finite. I think the entire series is available in trade paperbacks, if you want to pick up a few and see how it ended. Good stuff.