First Superhero Campaign

[pohtaytoh]

Hey, long time lurker first time poster. I'm running an M&M3e campaign with a some of my friends soon, and I was hoping to get some advice or suggestions from you guys. Though I've never run a superhero campaign, I have run a couple campaigns in other settings. I'm also the most experienced in the group which is why I was picked to run the campaign. I borrowed from a few ideas on the board for inspiration, I hope you don't mind.

I had the players roll up PL8 superheroes with 150pp to spend. They ended up with a fairly JLA-ish group. Green Lantern, Supergirl, Capt Marvel, Batman, Iceman, Firestorm

The setting will start off in a modern day Earth. Heroes didn't exist until a decade ago on New Years 2000. An event occurs which imbues people with superhuman powers/abilities. One of which is an astronaut whose shuttle explodes while she is on a secret mission to repair a satellite. She gains the abilities to manipulate and form matter from the alpha particles in the Van Allen belt. Unfortunately, her ability is also what's keeping her alive. She creates a space station hidden away from the rest of the world.

The world itself continues without noticing the additions for the next decade, though they benefit from it through medical and tech advances (internet boom, cell phones, ipads, etc). No one ever really knows what caused the event.

The astronaut, now known as Chronos, starts experimenting with her powers and creates the playerheroes. She will claim to want to learn the truth about what happened on that day over a decade ago. I'll have them go through a "testing" process. They will wake in a cryostasis unit inside a white room where they'll get to flex their RP muscles a bit before entering a new unit. I plan to run them through the Nazi test to get a gauge of their abilities to see if there are any final changes they might want to make before we really get started. This would also be a chance to get them familiar with the combat mechanics.

Once they wake up again from the test, they'll notice that a lot of time has passed. Things aren't as clean, the lights flicker. They'll discover that they are on a piece of space station that has drifted off into space. Chronos is in the main computer room in hibernation mode.


.....from here I'm a little at a loss for what should happen next. I'm considering going through an info dump where the playerheroes will learn about what really happened in the last decade. I may have Chronos speak with them and set them on a mission.

Ultimately, they will need to accomplish a set of goals which are:

• Get Chronos back to the space station.
• Get to Earth.
• Get artifacts from 3 locations on Earth.
• Discover the real cause of the event.

The artifacts the playerheroes will be collecting are the final parts to enable a machine Chronos has built to investigate the event. They will discover that the event was all a plot by the Joker (I'll likely not include the Joker world part).

I'm setting the locations of the 3 artifacts in San Francisco, CA, Atlantic City, NJ, and another I haven't decided. I'm considering the caper Dr. Null - Battle on the Bay Bridge to start the San Fran arc. Many have mentioned Atlantic City's similarity to Freedom City which prompted it's choice as a location.

As a twist, I'll probably have Chronos reveal a hidden knowledge hungry nature. Instead of investigating the event, she views the Big Bang causing the creation of the DC multiverse and dropping our heroes into a DC universe.


This is everything I've managed to put together in the short time I've had to prepare for this campaign. I had a little less than two weeks to prepare since our previous campaign ended suddenly. We'll be starting this Saturday. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Damren]

Off the top of my head, it feels like the first Crisis event (if you haven't worked out the details yet) would make an excellent start to this story, with 'Chronos' being in space when the void wall moved through her universe. For whatever reason (which can be developed later & used to add to future plots/stories), the Crisis activated her powers and allowed her to save her world by shifting it beyond the reach of the void wall. She may even be a nacent Monitor, or a being of similar power.

Instead of having her create the heroes (which can still be the cover story) allow her to save them from the various, infinte (now destroyed) worlds that she touched as she moved her Earth away from danger. Her world may have become an odd, fractured world that she takes steps to repair while the primary heroes are in stasis. Other beings she has saved appear on the world itself & represent those 'new' heroes that rose after the Event.

The societies of the world, however, are oddly calm, and the aftershocks of the Event seem to fade from view and memory. Everyone knows it happened, but its viewed as not being that important. Implying the presence of some power or force that is subtly, but significantly, altering reality.

As the Astronaut (I'm getting a real 'Harbinger' vibe here) recovers from her efforts, she creates a Mnemonic copy of her intellect and infuses it within the orbital base. This 'copy' essentially becomes Chronos - and, like many AI creations, it kind of goes bad. It tweaks the forward motion of civilization, and keeps the heroes (and the Astronaut) in hybernation longer than anticipated - until the Astronaut's powers actually recharge enough to detonate. The 'burst of creation' actually damages the station and shifts more pieces of the universes she saved into reality (thus giving you a back story by which you can add whatever elements you want to keep to your universe & toss those you don't like so much).

This Earth will be missing the PC heroes, but they did exist in it's history - just not how the PC's remember - thus keeping their backstories intact (if they have them) but giving them a mystery to sort through. While they can fill the rolls of their missing selves easily - if they're clever about it - some things will pop-up as odd. For instance, Robin may realize this isn't his Batman. There are now two (or three? or five? depending on your game) Green Lantern's in Sector 2814 & your PC's ring is (and isn't) legit. Your Supergirl may be from Krypton - but this universe has no Krypton (yet?) - and this Earth's Supergirl is from Daxam (a friendly from the Invasion who was cured of lead poisioning by either this Earth's FireStorm, Capt Marvel or some other NPC who will notice she isn't who she says she is). And so on ...

The purpose being to throw the player's off guard and to let you stretch yourself outside of expected continuity (if that matters - I have a lot of player's who really know their comics, so I play a game that's off Earth & away from known history - which gives them something new to think about, and renders them unable to use player knowledge to affect the game).

I like the idea of the orbital base, the WhiteRoom sounds very 'danger room' - which is cool, and the Statis chambers can be used for healing & rejouvanation during future games. Chronos can serve as an 'Oracle' of sorts, monitoring the planet and providing support like teleports, equipment as well as other headquarters-style needs.

In a 'nut' shell - nut pun intended - the Chronos program has essentially gone rogue from it's original design (kind of Brother-Eye'ish) and is working to safeguard the Earth and protect it's people in a Matrix-kind of way. Even to the point of creating villains who take out heroes who get close to the truth.

Harbinger's original purpose was to create a group of heroes to protect the Earth as her own presence can be catastrophic. The second Event (her detonation due to the computer-forced overcharge/hybernation) throws a 'glitch into the matrix' creating (or 'freeing') new heroes and new elements in the cosmos, as well as damaging Chronos and the satelite.

Chronos convinces the heroes she's the real deal (telling them she's still in hybernation and communicating through the computer) and has the heroes follow your plot points. One of the 'Artifacts' however, is a replicant body that she planning on inhabiting that fell to Earth in a stasis chamber. Essentially, Chronos wants them to capture Harbinger before she can regain enough power to become a threat to her status as Earth's protector. Even going to the extent of saying she needs to be destroyed, setting up an interesting conflict - we might see just how good a detective your Batman is? Another Artifact could be GL's original power battery (let him retain a charge due to being in temporal stasis - but give them a time limit before his power goes out) which fell to Earth during the second Event that damaged the satelite.

The other items could be advanced tech pulled from other lost universes (essentially pieces that can channel Harbingers power by manipulating the fundamental forces of nature and create a stable universe). Harbinger is trying to build a home universe for her Earth to survive in, while Chronos is trying to maintain Earth as it is, in a protective bubble, drifting through an infinite, near-empty void - which all changes when Harbinger's powers detonate in the second Event & stars begin to appear outside the artificial halo that surrounds the Earth and the Moon.

Your heroes may be the only ones who can solve the mystery and actually have the power to avert the coming ... Final Crisis. If Harbinger's powers aren't controlled, the Earth will be destroyed at the heart of a new Big Bang.

[pohtaytoh]

I appreciate the input! Indeed, a crisis event will have already occurred which created this "current" world. That was mostly the inspiration I gained from the "Joker" thread. In it, he suggested that the villains of the world succeeded in defeating the heroes creating a villain controlled Earth.

I can definitely use your suggestions for a more developed backstory with a few slight tweaks. Though, I'm still a little shaky on how I plan on getting them to earth from the station. I may just leave that up to their imaginations. None of them took any sort of space travel ability, but a couple of them have life-support.

A note: The heroes my players are creating won't be the actual "Green Lantern, Supergirl, Capt Marvel, Batman, Iceman, Firestorm." They just have powers that are inspired by them. Regardless, I can use the idea for when they get dropped into the DC universe setting.

[Damren]

Is the 'Green Lantern' able to make a construct that can get them to the ground?

Does the Chronos base have teleport capability that can be repaired or upgraded?

Does the base have an escape pod?

Might your 'Captain Marvel' have a mystical benefactor that could show him future uses of his power - I'm thinking of 'Teleport via Magic Lightning' - if his powers are mystical in nature?

You could have a villain attack the (now visible?) base and therefore provide a means of transport if the team defeats them.

An actual Green Lantern (or some other space born authority) can show up - tracking the rookie's energy signature - and provide them transport to the ground.

[pohtaytoh]

They will be starting in modern day earth, so there won't be any actual Green Lanterns or space authorities until after their jump into the DC Universe. The base won't have teleport capabilities due to extensive damage, though it will have escape pods. There will likely be a shuttle the heroes can use.

Since it's an unfamiliar vehicle, I might have whomever is chosen to pilot roll a Vehicle skill DC10-15 to pick a destination. They could potentially crash land in the middle of nowhere (stumbling on the "Paragons - A More Perfect Union" caper).

[Damren]

Sounds good!

[pohtaytoh]

Thanks again for the help, I appreciate it

[ZamuelNow]

I'm setting the locations of the 3 artifacts in San Francisco, CA, Atlantic City, NJ, and another I haven't decided.

Atlanta, Georgia or Miami, Florida might work for the third since somewhere down South would sort of form a triangle with the other locations.

[Shoe2]

I'm setting the locations of the 3 artifacts in San Francisco, CA, Atlantic City, NJ, and another I haven't decided.

Atlanta, Georgia or Miami, Florida might work for the third since somewhere down South would sort of form a triangle with the other locations.

or, conversely, you could put it the only place where the points do NOT create a triangle...halfway between those two locations in a straight line....maybe thats a little to obvious though

[pohtaytoh]

Now that the campaign has started, I'm actually considering letting my players inadvertently determine the last location. I'll let them speculate and I'll pick whichever one sounds best it'll make them feel like they actually figured it out on their own.