What sort of setting do you use for your superhero games?

[Commonblade]

I have played in a Marvel campaign that was homebrewed to the point that it no longer looked quite like the book setting. Main diffrences is that most of the book heroes had retired and the goup was part of the next generation of heroes. We could go ask for advice and occasionally we would team up with a grandpa version of the older heroes.

Much Later, I ran an MnM Freedom City Campaign, but set the events in New York. It was right after the 9/11 and everyone felt like fighting terrorist so I set up a villian group that was ex-Soviet Communist making a last stab at Capitalist USA. Players seemed to really enjoy it.

Now, I am guest DMing in a "Crisis of Muliplt Earths" Campaign where the DM is running it like a mix of Sliders and Stargate. The Heroes jump into random settings and prevent the destruction of that deminson. Villians try to cause the deminsons to colapse. Heroes must deal with being on diffrent worlds with no contacts and dealing with "local" villians who are unwittingly helping the "visting" villians. I have about three more sessions before I can start playing in this one myself

I think if I where to run a new campaign It would mix heavily into the MMORPG City of Heroes and City of Villians. I really enjoy the flavor of this game and think its and excellent setting.

 

[tadk]

Superhero Settings

Besides a few short stints in Villians and Vigilantes all my Superhero gaming has been using the Champions (Hero) system

I would and did and (if I game again) use many of the stock characters such as The BLOOD and such.

Otherwise it is all homebrew, and I have a large stock of characters that never even made it onto the scene.

For a while there were 3 some of us running it in several different parts of the US and we ended up tying it all in together so we had our own internal continuity.

I would say Cyberpunk is actually a major influence on my Superhero gaming

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

My superhero flicks either feature Townsville* or a nameless dark metropolis.

*Skeletor was attempting to destroy Ayers Rock from his base in Townsville and He-Man, Star Dream the My Little Pony, and the Wrong-un had to stop him. They fought pirates a thousand kilometers from water; but they were cool pirates with two birds, two peg legs, two hooks and TWO EYEPATCHES! Not to mention Prince Charles and dozens of ninjas or the C-3P0 units that formed together into a giant C-3P0 unit.




Hey, it was one of those "Lets play a game. Anything is good!" style of game.

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

This is an interesting question, because while I've played in almost every superhero game system around (except a few really obscure and/or ultra-new games), I've only ever run the one: Aberrant. That's why I voted for the "default campaign" option.

I've discovered that most superhero games have rules that particularly reflect the sensibilities of the genre they're trying to recreate. Marvel has the "no killing or you lose all your Karma" rule, reflecting the four-color, Avengers/Fantastic Four/early X-Men vibe from the Sixties and early Seventies. DC has the "irrational attraction" Drawback that allows you to recreate all the thematic characters that keep showing up in their stories (particularly in the vicinity of Arkham Asylum). And Aberrant has a paranoic, conspiracy-laden storyline that is complemented perfectly by the Storyteller system. You just know that when you grab a bunch of d10's and are worried about botching that someone in the shadows that you've never met is going to try to kill/frame/seduce/thwart you, and they'll have really bizarre powers with which to do it.

In the past, I preferred Marvel, because it was so easy to just jump in, make a character, and go to town. DC was more difficult, but still fun. Keep in mind that they also qualify as 'default settings for the system'.

 

[Three_Haligonians]

The Greatest Superhero game I ever played lasted for over 2 years and was nothing but talking and coin flips (for random chance). It was set in the classical D&D setting: high-fantasy, demi-humans, dragons and magic galore.

So... I voted other.


J from Three Haligonians

 

[The Shaman]

I played MSH many years ago, using an alternate universe (so that I could use well-known heroes as villains...trust me, you do NOT want the Scarlet Witch on your bad side!) - my last "supers" game was pulp heroes action using Mutants and Masterminds in a world that was inspired by Terry and the Pirates and Bring 'em Back Alive!

So I checked homebrew.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Homebrew.

My superhero games take place in a world a lot like ours, except that the supernatural elements come from standard FX rules as much as possible, and I try to use Dungeons and Dragons material for magical things and Dark*Matter for aliens and such. Alongside your more standard supervillains, players need to worry about infiltrators from the Illithid Empire, or the mysterious plots of the mostly benevolent Fraal.

When existing FX don't cover it (and to blend d20 tropes more with standard superhero tropes), I supplement them with material from Four Color to Fantasy.

 

[The Grackle]

Homebrew.

Half the fun of a supers rpg is making up new villains and heroes.

 

[ThoughtBubble]

It's a mishmosh.

The game started with a core concept, and a show to imitate. From there, the beginnings of a town and villain groups started appearing. Then, I sort of hijacked that conceptual stuff into the Freedom City setting. So, it's a little homebrew at its core, but it makes a lot of use of the exsisting campaign setting.

Now, the NEXT supers game I'm going to do is all homebrew. But that's less a supers game, so the setting is very important to the tone.

And Luthien, that's a neat point about the mechanics helping the setting. I need to throw in just a little bit of that.

 

[Steverooo]

Another Homebrewer. In my world, Superheroes existed in the ancient past of myth & legend, then disappeared until about WW II, when A Capt. America popped up (not necessarily the Marvel one). Since then, "Supercy" has been on the rise. No one really understands why, but now, stuffs that used to KILL people now seem to mutate them, instead... at least, once in a while!

Supers exist, but then again, so do magic, high-tech, and aliens. Marvel & DC (and other, lesser-known brands of) comic books exist, in the campaign, but the heroes laugh at them, instead of using them for research materials. You may run into Hyper-Tech-geared agents of F.O.R.C.E. (The Federal Organization for the Registration & Certification of Exotics), aliens with strange powers, weird physiology, and advanced weaponry, and "The Black Knight", ancient defender of lost Camelot, all in the same (very BAD!) day. The island of R'lyeh, when it emerges from the ocean, will dampen all the alien/mutant powers, and enhance all the magical ones. Stuff happens!

The PCs generally have to equip themselves, and manage things like communications and mobility. They can do it the Supers way, or (as in one very bad story), after the Telepath has almost burned herself out, trying to keep the group in touch, the Superheroes can just break down, and all buy radios with their cash (assuming they can afford it)! Once they all know where to go, they quickly discover that they do not have the mobility to get on-site to stop the bad guys... so one of the less-civic-minded "heroes" steals a bus, and drives them all there!

The game world is much like the real world, but with the "additional layer". Bombings and bus crashes (let alone thefts) still happen, but some Super-being may fly down to prevent (or even cause) it! F.O.R.C.E. is in trouble, due to budget cuts. Politicians may run on the platform of "Someone needs to do something about this Supers problem!"... and they don't have to be named Peter Henry Gyrich, either! (A Goldwater will do!)

I began the last campaign with the PCs sitting around, before they had met each other, watching the local news... They all bit for the "Finding the Little Girl Lost" bit, and met each other, there. Along the way, however, one saw the "Lights in the Sky" that my NPC hero was investigating when he encountered the aliens from the UFOs that were being reported (and dismissed)! The PCs mostly met up, and found the little girl. She was safely returned to her mother, and the PCs formed a team. In time, they all met up, and joined together. By the time that they had bought out an abandoned junk yard (yes, I stole that idea from another super-Group), and set up their "Secret Base" there, the aliens were after them. By the end of the campaign, one PC realized that every story they'd seen on the news, that night, ended up having something to do with them! Along the way, of course, they all made the news, too (even the ones who hadn't wanted to). Not always in the ways they liked, either! (J. Jonah Jameson, anyone?)

Stuff happens. Aint it fun?