Supers Campaign Brainstorming

[Hat Guy]

So I've been considering how I'm going to run my eventual Annihilation campaign; jotting down a few notes here and there and it's getting to the point that my project space is covered in scraps of paper and half-ideas. As I keep the blog for finished efforts, I thought I'd start putting my notes and WIPs on here and get a little feedback.

First off, why Annihilation? Why not Crisis on Infinite Earths, or Secret Wars or Infestation? To quote Dan Abnett, "Annihilation is a science-fiction war story turned up to eleven." It is by far my favourite crossover event that I've ever come across; the entire universe is in peril and the threat is actually credible, but surmountable. The situation is so dire that Blastaar and Nova work together, Super-Skrull and Ronan fight side by side and the Skrull empire is all but wiped out. I can think of little else that gives me such a clear antagonist to work with and provides such a scope for fun games to run.

Seriously, look at this guy:

He's not just here to conquer, he wants to kill every living thing in the universe. He's smart, powerful, paranoid and known as "The Death That Walks"... should make for a hell of a campaign finale.

Originally the plan was to have the players grow a roster of heroes to fight the wave, but now I'm thinking it may be better to use the narrative to link pre-set scenarios so that I can use the full variety of my heroes and villains. Of course, I'm not tied in to any specific system, so it also provides a good excuse to try out some varied games.

On the list so far:

SuperSystem Ultimate Alliance: My own variant of Scott's system, enabling me to do the big, crazy crossover games.
The Batman Miniatures Game: Hey, why not? Are there any fan made characters out there for it? I can imagine Solid Snake would work well with the stealth system.
Fistful of Kung Fu: I hear that it's good for Ninja Turtle games, so I imagine that it would also work well for Daredevil and Heroes for hire.
Judge Dredd Miniatures Game: It's got Dredd, Dark Judges, aliens, zombies and robots, must be something to work with there.
Villain Mission Force: I haven't even read this yet, but I'm sure I can get something out of it.
AE WWII: Plenty of fan supplements for Golden Age heroes, I may need to find a time-traveling villain to side with Annihilus.
Pulp Alley: Good for street-level games, maybe some Agents of SHIELD or The Phantom.

Any other suggestions?

[Puuka]

How are you going to work XP or character advancement?

I've thought of stuff like this for Heroclix and one of the obvious ones is to start with a lower point character, then let the player buy higher point versions of that same character. Another option is to earn ongoing special abilities and even one time use items/effects (that can replenish with each mission). There's also relics in the game that normally are picked up by a dice roll, but I was thinking that if a player defeats the character that is the source of the relic, they can spend their XP to buy the Relic and attach it to their character.

[Hat Guy]

I wasn't actually planning on having character advancement at all. If I were playing a straight SS4 campaign with homebrew characters, I'd use the XP system from that, but given that all of the characters will be established, I don't feel that it would be necessary.

Batman and Iron Man hardly need to "gain levels" after all.

To give the players a feeling of having an impact and providing that pressure over winning and losing, I'm going to have to have to lay out the campaign in a tree, predicting various outcomes and having stuff prepared ahead of time. Just pulling examples "out of the air", say the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles fail to stop a group of The Other Side of Zero cultists from opening a portal to the Negative Zone, this means in the next game, as well as The Ghostbusters having to deal with the Dark Judges, there will also be some Annihilation drones threatening civilians.
If the Turtles had won, perhaps the cult would seek revenge later in the campaign, kidnapping April and attempting to sacrifice her.

[rollntider]

Pulp City? You could swap some characters for others. Like ant man could be hadron.  Scarecrow = Feartigo etc... no stats to make, just substitute... Just an idea.

There is also power legion


http://dinahcatofdanger.blogspot.it/


This person already made up probably any character you need

[Hat Guy]

Haven't considered Pulp City too much, if only because I don't think anyone else at my club would play it. Am I correct in thinking that it's a "deck-building" kind of miniatures game, like Warmachine, Malifaux or Bushido? I do plan on getting some of the minis for homebrew heroes, but I've never even seen a rulebook here in Australia for it.

Also not familiar with Power Legion, I like that the stats are done, but where can I get a look at the rules?

[mrgrigson]

Pulp City is kind of a deck building game, but it isn't nearly as combo-mad as Warmahordes. You have a remarkable amount of freedom in designing forces. Heroes can always team up with each other, as can villains. Factions are pickier, but they might cross the heroic spectrum (The Way is a mystical martial arts team that is working against a greater evil than any established faction, while Nature can team up with itself given the proper leader). Caps on one leader (gets cards that can be used for unexpected advantages) and one powerhouse (big bruisers) per team. Characters will be level 1, 2, or 3, and you just add up levels to your preferred game size. Starter good & evil boxes contain 6 levels each, recommended game sizes are in the 12 to 24 level range. If you decide to order the rulebook, you may as well order the complete set of character cards while you're at it (unless you're good with downloading all of the cards from their site).  You'll likely also want all of the faction and leader cards too, which is kind of a sneaky startup cost.

[rollntider]

Haven't considered Pulp City too much, if only because I don't think anyone else at my club would play it. Am I correct in thinking that it's a "deck-building" kind of miniatures game, like Warmachine, Malifaux or Bushido? I do plan on getting some of the minis for homebrew heroes, but I've never even seen a rulebook here in Australia for it.

Also not familiar with Power Legion, I like that the stats are done, but where can I get a look at the rules?

Mr Grigson details it nicely.  There is a lot more freedom, but the leader cards are in the book, if you don't want to buy them. The rules are probably the best skirmish game i have ever played. They are simple fast and fun without dumbing the skirmish feel.

Power leagion can be found here.
http://www.wargamevault.com/product/138173/Power-Legion--Fast-Rules-for-superpowered-battles

I have not played a true game of it yet, just goofed around to learn the rules.

[Hat Guy]

Well, power legion is definitely worth a look, especially if it plays as fast as the reviews seem to indicate.

Still not sold on Pulp City, yes it looks nice, but I just don't see it taking off at club, where Warmahordes and Malifaux are already popular. I know a group in Brunswick used to play, I'll have to see if they're still around.

[Puuka]

I wasn't actually planning on having character advancement at all. If I were playing a straight SS4 campaign with homebrew characters, I'd use the XP system from that, but given that all of the characters will be established, I don't feel that it would be necessary.

Batman and Iron Man hardly need to "gain levels" after all.

To give the players a feeling of having an impact and providing that pressure over winning and losing, I'm going to have to have to lay out the campaign in a tree, predicting various outcomes and having stuff prepared ahead of time. Just pulling examples "out of the air", say the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles fail to stop a group of The Other Side of Zero cultists from opening a portal to the Negative Zone, this means in the next game, as well as The Ghostbusters having to deal with the Dark Judges, there will also be some Annihilation drones threatening civilians.
If the Turtles had won, perhaps the cult would seek revenge later in the campaign, kidnapping April and attempting to sacrifice her.

No, they don't really level, but they do tend to pull the Bat-Thing-O-Matic that is needed or the Mark-12-A-Mabob Armor that is designed to take on whatever threat they are facing and spanked them hard in their last encounter.

[obsidian3d]

I'd suggest Power Legion as well. It's lighter weight than SuperSystem 3 but feels very similar. I haven't tried SS4 yet. Pulp City is cool but doesn't allow for creating your own characters yet.

[Hat Guy]

Scurv - I had to re-read JDMG last night to remember how to play it, so I'm not sure how I'll go learning an entirely new system by the weekend. I did stat up my Royal Flush Gang as Sky-Surfers though, just to sneak some supers in there somehow.


Puuka - Now I get what you're driving at!  Yes, I plan on having Hulkbuster Armour and Kryptonite gauntlets, but more as scenario-specific load-outs than earned rewards.

[Hat Guy]

Did some trading online, got some new cosmic villains, or perhaps potential allies against Annihilus:

Blastaar and a Blood Brother.

[Legionnaire]

I'd go with Power Legion too. The main advantage is that you can just 'pick and choose' your arbitrary Stat and Ability for a hero/villain (ranging D4 for normal human, d6 athlete, d8 peak human, d10/d12/ superhuman and d20 cosmic). Although, some powers are not covered in the main rules and may come in a later companion (like growth/ shrinking and a couple others). I've played two games with the rules and they are quite fast and fun, nice touch with the graded 'damage' system. 1-3 pts pick a Minor effect and 4+ a Major effect.

[Hat Guy]

So, been curled up inside most of the day, feeling a bit sick and had plenty of time to read. A good friend of mine just left the country for good and gave me a stack of trades and graphic novels that I've been diving into. Plenty of inspiration in there for me.

For those that have read Annihilation, you know that one of Annihilus' first allies from the 616 universe is Thanos:

...think I just peed a little.

Makes sense, Annihilus is The Death That Walks and Thanos is in love with death, if he signs up, a lot of people are going to die.

What I didn't know about Thanos is that a fair proportion of Badoon either work for him or worship him. Whilst I don't care to paint up a tonne of Badoon, turns out they're slavers and scavengers, who often employ monsters to do their fighting for them. The basic Heroclix Badoon:

Should be pretty easy to convert to have a whip or a prod or something, then all I have to do is find some miscellaneous monsters in my collection (or even "enslaved" heroes and villains) and I have a new antagonist for the Wave.

[Hat Guy]

So I recently read Blackest Night in the hopes of finally understanding what the hell the Black Lanterns are about. Turns out it's death. No big surprise there, I was just hoping for more. Turns out Nekron and the Black Light existed before Light and Time and have returned to murder everything in the universe so that they can return to their lifeless utopia...

Goddamn, comics can be dumb.

Ok, so plenty of comic big bads want to murder everything in creation, but Nekron takes the cake for vagueness. "I will bring the universe back to the time before life because... um... Zombie Lanterns!" At least Judge Death has legal precedent on his side and the Undermind is ravenously hungry for all creation.

Probably the best thing I've seen to come out of Blackest Night are some of the fan created Black Lanterns:

Black Lantern Cap.


Black Lantern Spawn.

This idea, and Soapy's fantastic Black Lantern conversions, may just get me to turn a couple of spare Clix into Black Lanterns as a fun little side project. Not sure what role they'll play in the campaign, but I'm thinking they could work as the Undermind's lieutenants in the same way as Brit.

Would Black Lantern Gwen Stacy or Uncle Ben be in bad taste? What other crummy dead heroes would be fun? Black Lantern Jason Voorhees?