1001 Street-Level Ideas

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60. Happiness Costs Extra While investigating something else, the heroes run across a slave ring: the bad guys advertise for nannies in other countries, smuggle them into this land, and prostitute the women, hiring them out. (The ads are in the free tabloid, in the classifieds in the back.) An interesting conundrum for heroes who happen to frequent brothels.

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61. Have a heart! Oswald Dortmunder is 125 years old, but he looks like he's in his mid-fifties. His secret? Organ transplants. Everything but his brain has been transplanted. Unfortunately, importation of organs is illegal from every country except Colombia and the Phillipines, and even there it's expensive. So he's turned to illegal means for getting transplants.

When an organ starts to fail, Oswald has about a year. He finds someone who matches him, forges the acceptance, and kills the "donor". Usually this gets him the organ he wants. Sometimes it doesn't, so Oswald has to take a more direct hand.

Given his age, Oswald is very rich; each organ is about 10,000 dollars, though it can go higher. Since Oswald only wants white skin (for example) he has to be creative sometimes.

The players can run across this in a number of ways, but it's possible that one of the organs is diseased, so Oswald is going to have to replace all of them at once. In that case, the players come on just after the death of the infected donor.

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62. Ladyfingers There's a kidnapping, of a college teenager, and the kidnappers have sent a finger to prove they're serious. The only problem is, as any hero with a crime lab can tell them, it's not a finger from kidnap victim.

Possible reasons include:

• it's a finger off someone with regeneration, and the villains are soft-hearted
• the college student has staged the kidnapping and won't use his own finger
• the kidnapper is associated with a killer who sent the wrong finger by mistake ("Hey, alla these fingers look the same to me!"
• someone in the crime lab is playing a trick on the characters and complicating the kidnapping

EDIT: Put in a real list.

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63. Jewel robbery, with hostages on the side it was supposed to be a simple jewel robbery, either a smash'n'grab or something more elaborate (tunneling into the store?) But somehow it went wrong, and now there are hostages, important to the player characters. The big-hitter supers are busy right now (maybe that was part of the plan) so it's up to the PCs.

64. Robots don't need body mods if there are life-like robots in your campaign, someone might turn them to smuggling. After all, they look like people and they already have exemptions that get them past the metal detectors at airports. Of course, you'd have to convince them to give up the goods and their employer...

[MM]

"Hello men and women of the news. While I am sure all of you in this room and at home know who I am, I'd like to introduce myself anyway. I am the Commander, and for the last 10 years I've been leading the Defenders in defense of your city. And I am tired. I'm tired of law enforcements going after solo heroes like the Red Scorpion, claiming that she is a vigilante in league with criminal orginization, despite the fact she has never killed and had done her best to put criminals behind bars. I'm tired of the fact that when the Iron Knight fought Dr. Destruction, that the citizens would accuse our hero of needless damage to his surroundings as opposed to thanking him for the lives he saved. I'm tired of being told that we should exclude those who gained powers from the Terminus, despite the fact they now use those powers to protect this city. I'm tired of being told I should seek out minorities to join our team, that we should hire based on race or gender or creed as opposed to seeking out those who would put their life on the line for this city. But mainly I'm just tired. Therefore, it is with reluctance that I am order the dissolution of the Defenders. Furthermore, I am stepping down as a hero. You don't like the job we're doing, then good luck without us."

65. Heroes Strike

Several major heroes, upset by the fact that they are repeatedly taken for granted have decided to go on strike. As one major hero after another decides to 'take a break from protecting those who despise and abuse us', others similarly follow suit. Do the players do so as well? Do they try to keep up with the growing crime wave alone? How do other heroes react to them moving against the strike? Can they get city officials to ease up and allow the heroes to do their jobs?

[Soul of Memory]

I remember a Psych episode involving a chop shop, so:

66. The heroes bust a chop shop, but when the leader is being Miranda-ed, one of them sees him smile for some reason. (He has some way of mind-shielding himself, so telepathy doesn't help)

In reality, the chop shop was a cover for a drug-smuggling operation, and the guy they caught planned the murder of its leader, ensuring he'd be in prison when they found the body.

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67. It's my town, see? A mob boss is about to die, and even though he named a successor, the successor is perceived as weak by another mob. They're going to try and take over, up to and including a hit at the funeral. The violence can affect innocents here, so the heroes have to try and stop it.

[kipling]

68. Morituri te ignoramus A local drug shipment has gotten crossed up with another drug. The drug that's actually on the streets gives you super powers and then kills you. (Someone is dumping a failed super-powers formula.) The heroes have to deal with a number of super-powered junkies, most of whom die at the end (and probably in messy ways). They also have to find out who is dealing this stuff, and stop them.

69. I'll pay you after you help me. The heroes are targeted by a number of foes who are junkies with super-powers, and the mob who wants the heroes dead has said it will pay them after they eliminate the heroes. What the mob didn't tell them is that the super-power drug (mentioned in #68 as well) kills 99% of its users. If the junkies find that out, they will want to attack the mafia that gave them powers, which means that the heroes might be in the uncomfortable position of protecting the mob from the super-powered foes.

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70. A Mission on the Commission A tip comes to the heroes that the local mafia families are tired of the turf violence and want to set up something like the Commission: an arbitration group that will assign disputed lands to different gangs. First is the moral dilemma: do the heroes want a Commission? It makes life easier for the Mob, yes, but it means fewer innocents die. Assuming at least one character doesn't want the commission (and that could be an npc), the heroes have to stop the meetings that lead to the commission or stop the attempt to stop the commission.

(Yes, I am thinking about the Mafia right now....)

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71. You call it extortion, we call it protection. The heroes run across some Mafia associates who are out to trash a place that hasn't been paying its protection money. The heroes will stop them, which means that the original target is still a target, and now the heroes are a target, too. The mob will send increasingly bigger threats to deal with the heroes until it finds one that works: hiring a supervillain might work, or finding out something about the hero and blackmailing them. Alternatively, the heroes might run across a hero who is being blackmailed for this very reason, and work to try to free him or her--but the blackmailed hero has been told to deal with the heroes.

[kipling]

72. At the Velvet Weekend Ballroom The Velvet Weekend Ballroom is now a bar and strip club featuring old and sodden strippers and a clientele that will drink wood alcohol in a pinch. It's also slated for demolition. One of the regulars is a retired and booze-soaked vigilante who has plans to save his bar, even if it involves violence and possibly the deaths of a few construction workers. Can the heroes--especially the one who is trying to save the retired vigilante--stop him (or them; maybe there are a number of retired washed-up supers there)?

73. Fire Purifies. The downtown section of the city is a hive of scum and villainy, and someone has been burning down buildings one at a time. But the arsonist has inspired Reverend Gary Peyer, who finally understands that those mutant fire powers he's been suppressing for all those years are not demonic, but angelic. Fire purifies, and the only way to get that bad behavior out of the city is to burn it down to the ground. So Reverend Peyer has to practice with his powers a bit and then he's going to burn down the downtown. A possible hint for the heroes might be his spouse in the Burn Ward (he believes she's wayward) who can come to just in time to tell them who is planning to burn down the city.

74. But Sometimes It Just Burns. Same setup of a pyrokinetic reverend, but his wife actually hates him: they've grown apart and he's too strict which makes her worry he'll come after her, or she might feel he spends too much time trying to save the sinners there or he gives in to sins of the flesh there. So he's not planning on burning down the downtown section, but she'll tell the heroes he is, and there might be...collateral damage.

75. Future Shock. Gareth Omicron (he says that's what his name is) says he has come back from the future to prevent terrible events, and the only way to do that is by killing certain people who will turn out to be important. Maybe he's right, maybe he's delusional--but he has some kind of abilities, and he's killing people. And a hero or a hero's loved one is next on his list.

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76. Go out with a bang A Mafia leader's son, Michael, has agreed to testify against his dad, so there are murder attempts and the heroes have to keep him safe until he gets to the DA. But there is a second part: Michael desperately wants to please his father and has never been able to (pick your reason: Michael is transgendered, Michael likes showtunes and is bad at sports and fighting, whatever) so he is wearing a bomb. He intends to commit suicide when the DA is in the same room with him, and in fact he's insisted that the DA meet him. Maybe then his Dad will love him, even posthumously. Will the heroes be able to protect him? And will the heroes discover the bomb in time?

[AceFlasheart]

77. Election day.

The new candidate for mayor is running against the incumbnent on a policy of zero tolerance for masked vigilantes. As election day draws near the heroes must be very careful to go about their business with the upmost care not cause a scene that could tilt the election in the new guy's favor.

a) It's poor timing for the heroes then, that this is the week a group of their enemies have decided to pick for a downtown crime spree. Everything now is about damage control, and trying to salvage the incumbents campaign out of the wreckage of this PR nightmare.

b) Even worse for the PC's, the new candidate is on the payroll of the crime boss of their city. The heroes have to find a way to sink his campaign without implicating themselves in the process.

c) An assassination attempt by a masked attacker on the new mayoral candidate sends the city into a frenzy, and threatens to tip the election in his favor. When the heroes investigate, all the evidence points towards one of the cities costumed heroes being the perpetrator. To stop the new candidate from sweeping this election is going to mean bringing a hero to justice. But is there a chance this was all just an eleborate framing?

d) The new candidate is a supervillian himself, using his powers, intellect, or knowledge of costumes crimefighters to help him or her win him the election. The heroes know this, but they can't prove it. Much like the "b" scenario, except that sinking the campaign may also mean a fight for their lives, as the villian is every bit as dangerous and deadly in a suit as they were in a costume.

[AceFlasheart]

78. Greener Pastures.

Tired of getting beaten by his usual foe, a supervillian packs up and moves cities, hoping for betting luck against the less powerful, street level heroes of the PC's city, than he had against his old paragon nemisis.

Overpowering him will be extremely difficult. Their one advantage is that the heroes don't have to operate under the same M.O. as this villian is used to. Beating him may require taking him on, not head on in a superpowered brawl, but getting inside his head, and hitting him where he's weakest.

[Man Called True]

79. "Oh, God, I can see forever!" An enemy of the PCs has managed to dose one of their friends or loved ones with a chemical that grants them superpowers. Unfortunately for the significant other, the chemical was deliberately compromised, and the powers are out of control. The enemy has a cure, and a list of demands...

80. The Paper Lion Scheme. Armed with some low-level superpower-granting technology, a local reporter asks to tag along with the PCs in order to write about what it's like to be a superhero. It's good publicity... if the reporter lives.

81. The Next Big Bootleg. It was a tragedy when famous singer Annabelle Lind died in the middle of her greatest performance. But now there's a strange videotape on the market. The autopsy said it was sudden heart failure due to a congenital condition, but this tape is from a thermal-imaging camera, and it shows someone reaching into her chest and apparently squeezing. No one was on the stage with her when she died... right?