Last night we started playing an interesting supers campaign. Basically the players wanted to do a supers game, and of course I have a zillion, several of which I actually love and want to run. Since Cael wanted to play a character who could move through universes, we decided his character would stay the same, but the other folks would make new characters as we switched worlds (and game systems). So, our first game system is:
That's TSR's Marvel Superheroes from 1986. Yes, gaming has become substantially different in the ensuing decades, but I have a soft spot for this game (affectionately known as "FASERIP" after the seven basic attributes). It's the first RPG I played or ran, and I credit it with getting me into the hobby - I was aware of D&D before I played Marvel, but the in-crowd clique at my school played D&D and I was not in that crowd (think for a moment how profoundly weird that sentence is), so Marvel was really more my speed. Plus I knew super-heroes; I grew up watching Super-Friends and various other similar cartoons.
Yes, the system is very much a product of its time, but that's fine. We'll see if I still like it after I've run it a few sessions with the wisdom of nearly 40 years of GMing experience.
So, this particular game takes place in a world (IN A WORLD) very much like ours. We decided to go the DC route of having a fictional city that incorporates elements of a real-world city. So our city is...Believeland!
Believeland sits on the Great Lakes, and is a shipping hub. There's also extensive salt mines that go out underneath the lake and the city; some of these mines are still in use, while others have flooded or been decommissioned. The city has a renowned culinary school and food scene, and the competition between up-and-coming chefs can get pretty cutthroat at times. There's a now-abandoned and shut down nuclear power plant on the outskirts of the city; supposedly there's no nuclear material there anymore, but more than one super-human has "had an origin" there.
Also, there's a year-round fair on the waterfront, and every season there's a three-day event, with rides and booths and so forth.
The city has had its share of super-heroic weirdness over the years, too. Some 30 years ago, a villain released a whole bunch of balloons filled with a toxic gas, but was thwarted by two heroes named Big Chuck and Li'l John. More recently, a villain with a bass guitar that created vibrations that might have destroyed the city attacked, but was foiled by a hero called Sterling. And then a bunch of genetically modified lizards invaded; a hero called the Piper stopped them and rounded them up. So it's your basic four-color weirdness.
But our heroes are three more contemporary folks...
Mirage, aka Rose Ramirez, is a professor of archaeology at Bachs University. While on a trip in South America she fell into a cenote. Time and space went wibbly, and she emerged with superpowers - she can levitate, create illusory duplicates of herself, and can even reanimate the dead! She also has an allergy to silver, however. She keeps her identity secret.
Night Fyre, however is out and proud. Rhea Salerno was a normal working-class person in Believeland who was exposed to some kind of radioactive waste while on a job. The stuff gave her the power to project and control heat, to teleport, and to focus all of her energy into one mighty burst, but it also changed her form - she has feathers up and down her arms and legs and a beak-like face. She does a lot of work with Food Not Bombs and similar groups.
These two folks were brought together by Bella Green, aka Whispers. Whispers is a homebody, hacktivist, and radio enthusiast, exposed to some kind of weird energy that enhanced her intellect and gave her telepathic powers. Whispers found Mirage and Night Fyre and called them together to foil a plot to steal the crown jewels of Maldonia from the Heinens Vault in downtown Believeland (the perp in question was a supervillain with photokinetic powers called Strobe, looking to use the diamonds to boost his powers). Whispers acts as the group's "guy in the chair" and unofficial leader.
And so as we open our story, it's a beautiful early summer day in Believeland! Whispers in the park in the center of the city, typing away on her laptop. Rhea is nearby doing a food drive, and Rose is attending a conference at a downtown hotel. And suddenly, people start pointing at the sky and yelling - "Look, he's falling!"
The heroes look upwards and see that, yes indeed, a man in what seems like a tuxedo is plummeting from the sky. People in weird costumes in the sky isn't exactly unknown in Believeland, but this guy is falling to his death. Whispers gets on the phone and texts Rhea and Rose, and Rhea springs into action!
She tries to create a cushion of heated air for the man to fall on, but can't quite seem to get it to solidify. Whispers points out a construction site and tells Night Fyre to use her heat to inflate a safety tent, but she can't manage that either. But fortunately, that wasn't Whispers' main plan.
Rose casts an illusory duplicate to make it look like she's still in the crowd, and dips into an alley to become Mirage! She activates her levitation powers and kicks off from the wall to give herself a little forward momentum. She catches the man in midair and starts spinning around to slow him down a little while they descend.
The man introduces himself as Magnus the Magnificent (though he lists a bunch of other titles as well - the Marvelous, the Mysterious, the Magnanimous). He makes vague references to "other universes", but Mirage doesn't have time to deal with that while heading for the ground. They land safely and people applaud, and Magnus reaches into his top hat and pulls out a bullhorn. He says "I have been saved...by MIRAGE!" The crowd cheers.
Whispers texts the other two and asks them to meet up at her hideout later. In the meanwhile, she does some digging into extradimensional travel, and learns that it's a lot like tuning a radio to a particular frequency. Given time and materials she could probably make a machine that does it, but Magnus apparently can "tune" himself. Fascinating.
The four of them meet up in a basement lair that Whispers uses, and Magnus introduces himself to the others. He says that he appeared in this universe after escaping from the "Lincoln Dimension" - he explains that all Abraham Lincolns in all universes are actually invaders from the Lincoln Dimension, but they never get a foothold because they always get assassinated. Very weird.
Anyway, the four of them chat a bit, Magnus says he generally appears in a universe and does a little hero-ing before moving on, the others say that's fine, welcome to Believeland. And then an alarm goes off!
Whispers checks her computers (she's hooked into all the security cameras in the city, of course). She sees that three dudes in balaclavas have broken into a dockside warehouse used to house goods before they go through customs. One of them shoots the camera, but like, that's not the only camera, and she can still see them congratulating each other. "OK, so they're idiots."
And then they round a corner and find themselves starting at three robots. The robots are human-sized, but appeared to be made from clockwork. "Steampunk is a thing on this universe?" asks Magnus. "Not...usually," replies Whispers.
As they watch, the robots raise their fists and fire flechettes at the thieves from housings on their knuckles. The thieves stagger backwards and flee, wounded, and the heroes get ready to roll! Thieves or not, not one deserved to be robo-murdered!
No comments:
Post a Comment