Tips on running a superhero campaign

[The_Gneech]

Every city has an endless supply of creepy abandoned amusement parks just outside of town.

-The Gneech

 

[Twowolves]

Mutants and Masterminds is your friend.

Freedom City is your blueprint for your campaign world.

 

[Tsillanabor]

I think what I may do is use the beer n' pretzels Marvel Super Heroes system that's been defunct for around two decades. I remember this system from aeons back when I was but a whelp to RPGs and, while our GM sucked, we still managed to have lots of fun.

Good choice. See if you can find the Ultimate Powers book. Best Superhero supplement ever.

 

[Emirikol]

I'd base it on the Superhero from the DUNGEON board game from 1975.

jh

 

[buzz]

2005 Ennie nominee Capes, 2006 Ennie nominee Truth & Justice, and With Great Power can be your friends, too. Especially if you're looking for a supers RPG that's pushing the envelope a bit.

 

[buzz]

Freedom City is your blueprint for your campaign world.

Nocturnals: A Midnight Companion is probably closer to what you want. It's for M&M1e, but the setting info will possibly be useful.

 

[Rackhir]

There was an excellent BBC mini-series Called "Ultraviolet" (Nothing to do with the recent movie aside from the name and the fact that they involved blood suckers). Which was about a group who's job it was to hunt down and destroy "Code V"s (the word Vampire is never used). The "leeches" tend to operate in the background, subverting key people and replacing the media shy. There's also several plots and experiments that they uncover over the course of the series. So it might well make a good background/source material.

While it sucked as a movie, the recent movie "Ultraviolet" might also be a suitable source of background/ideas. Since Violet is pretty much a superhero level character and at least some of the ideas/background would work well for a supers campaign.

 

[SWBaxter]

Well, for a campaign featuring a single hero, I'd say probably the most important thing to work on is the recurring characters, both supporting cast and villains. Solo comic books tend to spend quite a bit of time examining the hero's relationships, so it's not a bad idea to work that into the campaign.

So far as themes go, if you want to have vampires as the bad guys I'd spend some time working out how they fit into the world. I personally am kind of a sucker for the "vampires as political creatures" concept, so I'd make up several different houses/clans/groups/whatever of vampires, give each one a hook and have them work at cross-purposes on occasion. Your plague of vampires might just be a by-product of the schemes among the houses, and the hero may even find they're being manipulated to dust off one of the house's enemies. Of course, the hero's supporting cast can also get involved, leading to more subplots. His girlfriend accepts a job with a real estate law office that's a front for one of the house's property holdings, his friend/rival becomes the target of a rogue vampire, and so on.

Setting wise, with all due respect to Freedom City (which is a great place for a four-colour campaign) it's not a great choice for a darker style, IMHO. I'd go for one of the Hero supplements, either Hudson City (a decaying crime-ridden urban nightmare) or Vibora Bay (a city with a definite supernatural edge to the underworld).

 

[buzz]

I'd go for one of the Hero supplements, either Hudson City (a decaying crime-ridden urban nightmare)...

Hudson City is flat-out amazing, and cannot be recommended enough. It's a bit more focused on gritty crime, though; there's lots of gang- and mafia-related plot seeds. It also was designed with the assumption that there would be no JLA/JLU-level supers running around; the default is Punisher-level, with the ability to indulge in Batman and even up to Spiderman, tops.