New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

[paul_runstedler]

Starting a new champs campaign, and I have a basic premise, but want to hear from some of you guys out there.

 

The world is present day, and there was no such things as super-heros. That is until last week. A group of mysterious super-heros emerged seemingly out of no-where as the governments latest anti-terrorist unit.

 

The characters are lead to believe that they "just came into" their super-powers recently, and were almost immediately approached by a wing of the government and made an offer they couldn't refuse to join up and help protect their country from external threats.

 

The reality is that the government have secretly been growing this group of supers over the last 15 years as part of a secret military project. Ala "Total Recall" they've had all their past memories written into their brains in order to make them believe they joined this program willingly.

 

The first game will start with an orchestrated publicity stunt to introduce the heros to the public. the players/characters will think they're saving people's lives by countering some type of threat. In reality the government will have cooked up the entire thing to introduce the world to super-heros, and to create good PR in order to continue with their project (with full support of the Senate)

 

Things I'm looking for ideas on.

1. Growing humans, especially super-humans is tricky business. I need some plausable explanations as to how this occured and exactly the phases that would have to be gone through to take a test-tube human and make them into a real-live person with history, personality, quirks, relationships etc.

2. Details on functions the government might want to use this group for that normals might be incapable of performing.

3. How would the public *really* react to such a thing. I'm not talking about how they do in 3 color comic books. I'm talking about what might really happen if this really and truly happened tomorrow.

4. How would the government protect its secret? How would they prevent (or at least prolong) the characters from finding out about the fact that they're pawns.

5. Other cool ideas, and interesting things that relate to this type of campaign.

6. What type of contingency plan will the goverment have in order to control this group? Or what plan do they have in case anyone goes "rogue"?

 

I've read a lot of posts around here, and I'm really looking forward to all your input!

 

Thanks guys!

Paul

[Scifi_Toughguy]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

1) Gene/DNA splicing. Whether it be from aliens or animals, you can make it work.

 

2) Raiding enemy camps, shocktroops.

 

3) The conspiracy theorists would go absolutely nuts. We're talking a rebirth of the industry.

 

4) Kill or sequester all those involved with the project from the cleaning lady on up. Keep the characters constantly on some mission. If they never have sit down and rest time, they'll never be able to put their super human minds to the task.

 

5) d'oh!

 

6) Remember the lycene(sp?) contingency from Jurassic park? If the government created them, it surely has the means to take them apart. I follow the by-line that the government doesn't unveil something(usually a weapon system) until it already has something more powerful in the wings to compensate for it. Perhaps there was one superhero before this group but the government got it and covered it up ala Area 51 theories. Think of it like this: What if the US government had found the Kryptonian baby and not the Kent family? They keep 'it' under wraps and used its DNA to form the current team of supers. Oh man this question has to be the single best out of the ones you asked. So many routes to go!

[Cybertooth]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

3. How would the public *really* react to such a thing. I'm not talking about how they do in 3 color comic books. I'm talking about what might really happen if this really and truly happened tomorrow.

 

The public, as far as those in the heroes home country, would probably have mixed feelings. Some would feel threatened and might begin creating things and groups in order to deal with the heroes if the need ever arose.

 

Some would be be radical and stage terrorists attacks on the government or against the heroes themselves.

 

Others would think that it's the coolest thing ever and may even try to find ways to develop powers of their own, in order to "join up."

 

The media would probably try and find everything possible about the heroes' personal lives and what their involvement in the government is, and will end up making these findings public (freedom of the press and all that jazz). What would the government do in order to stop "leaks" in a situation like this?

 

Other nations would probably find that a nation that has government sanctioned/controlled supers to be a serious threat to their sovereignty and begin creating supers of their own to deal with the possible threat.

 

That's about all I have for now, more later as it comes to me.

[Watchdog]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

Things I'm looking for ideas on.

1. Growing humans, especially super-humans is tricky business. I need some plausable explanations as to how this occured and exactly the phases that would have to be gone through to take a test-tube human and make them into a real-live person with history, personality, quirks, relationships etc.

2. Details on functions the government might want to use this group for that normals might be incapable of performing.

3. How would the public *really* react to such a thing. I'm not talking about how they do in 3 color comic books. I'm talking about what might really happen if this really and truly happened tomorrow.

4. How would the government protect its secret? How would they prevent (or at least prolong) the characters from finding out about the fact that they're pawns.

5. Other cool ideas, and interesting things that relate to this type of campaign.

6. What type of contingency plan will the goverment have in order to control this group? Or what plan do they have in case anyone goes "rogue"?

 

1. You can chalk up the powers to any significant scientific breakthrough. The rest of the question is a little more complicated, imo.

 

It's possible, even in real life, to implant false memories in a subject. Psychologists have been successful in doing this with everything from mundane false memories (you got lost in a department store when you were six) to more troubling delusions (you were abducted by aliens.) So if you have a world with superpowers, it's certainly not a big stretch to do it on a greater scale in your campaign world.

 

But how they interact with the rest of the world could be problematic - do they have friends or coworkers (in a secret ID) that they socialize with? Pretty much everyone in their circle would have to be a government plant,

 

I think to keep up this masquerade, you would make their government contact a combination of the old Gyrich liasion with the Avengers, and Professor X - it should be a lot harder for them to discover the truth that way. (He could be from an earlier "generation" of experiments.)

 

2. How the government uses them will be interesting. I think the question of "Why has the government decided to reveal their presence at this time?" needs to be answered first. Was a Congressional Committee or General Accounting Office audit getting close to the truth? Was there a leak? Or as Scifi suggested, is this just a distraction so the government can work on their really badass paranormal project?

 

3. After the first publicity stunt, the public will have very different ideas about how they should be used. Someone with a spouse fighting in Iraq will be wondering why the guy who can't be hurt by bullets or car bombs isn't fighting there. Those on the left will be concerned by this new potential threat to privacy, especially if there's a mentalist. And the entertainment based media will be pushing very hard for personal details.

 

4. Rather than make it a total "black op" (though some deaths may be necesary) take a page from Men in Black, and "leak" something close to the truth - to the Weekly World News, to the Chris Carter X-Files production team (great pitch to the network!), etc. Discredit the idea before it starts. A good press secretary would also help here: "We created them? We can't even get the president to stop saying 'nu-cu-lur".)

 

5. Will this lead to a paranormal arms race? How will the Russians, Chinese, Islamic nations react? Do they already have programs of their own, using the same or different methods?

 

6. Each character should have a vulnerability and/or susceptibility that the government can take advantage of. Even a few Park Rangers could take out Superman if they had kryptonite bullets. They could also have microscopic tracking devices implanted in them without their knowledge, so the government will always know where they are. And if you want to get really grisly, it could also be the equivalent of a cortex bomb...

[Vanguard00]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

Things I'm looking for ideas on.

1. Growing humans, especially super-humans is tricky business. I need some plausable explanations as to how this occured and exactly the phases that would have to be gone through to take a test-tube human and make them into a real-live person with history, personality, quirks, relationships etc.

First, use phrases like "neural downloads" to explain knowledge and such. Subliminal input in the form of pictures and "home movies" could give them all the usual childhood memories, maybe with a low-level mentalist tweaking things now and again. Thus, they believe they grew up normally (well, as normally as you desire, anyway). I recommend not going into detail in this area in order to prevent backing yourself into a corner. Have scientists explain it like "well, in layman's terms, they turned a TV on in your head and programmed your channels for you". Thus you avoid pseudo-science that might come back to bite you in the arse.

2. Details on functions the government might want to use this group for that normals might be incapable of performing.

"Homeland security" is always good. Or maybe the government simply wants its own loyal team of heroes in case other heroes go rogue. Maybe the faction of the government that 'grew' the heroes has its own agenda, some sort of coup, perhaps, or simply running "black ops" that the Prez and the cabinet don't know about (plausible deniability and all that).

3. How would the public *really* react to such a thing. I'm not talking about how they do in 3 color comic books. I'm talking about what might really happen if this really and truly happened tomorrow.

Depends on what you're asking. If you're asking how the public would react to a government super-team, I'm guessing they would react according to whatever the overall public opinion was at the moment. Good or bad, I doubt a team of superheroes in and of itself would sway the public's opinion too far one way or the other unless the government or the team itself did something particularly noteworthy.

 

If, however, you're asking what the public opinion would be if they found out the heroes were test-tube babies and "created" to be superheroes, I'm guessing the public outcry would be huge. It's likely heads would roll, from military heads to cabinet chairs, maybe the president himself if it was shown he knew. A lot of scapegoats would be crucified in the court of public opinion. Religious groups would be up in arms over the assumption of God's duties in the creation of life. Human rights groups would be up in arms over the so-called 'brainwashing' of these relatively new people. Some people would manufacture reasons to jump on the bandwagon just to try and get a piece of the publicity. The media would have a field day and it's doubtful the testtube PCs would have a moment's peace for months to come (if ever again). That sort of thing.

4. How would the government protect its secret? How would they prevent (or at least prolong) the characters from finding out about the fact that they're pawns.

As I mentioned before, plausible deniability. Only a select few would even know this happened, and upon completion of the experiment many might become the victims of "accidents". Most government officials probably wouldn't know of their true origins.

 

To answer the "how long" question, think about how the PCs would in fact discover the truth. Was it leaked by a guilty party (a scientist who feels guilty for his part in the duplicity)? Or maybe a sharp reporter stumbled onto something (too many inconsistancies in their backgrounds). Perhaps the PCs overheard just the wrong thing at just the wrong time--or have noted inconsistancies of their own--and now they have their own suspicions. Figure out how the PCs could find out, then figure out how that would come about in realistic fashion, then figure out to what lengths your primary antagonist would go to protect that secret (i.e., do they simply try to manipulate the media, or are they willing to kill to protect it).

5. Other cool ideas, and interesting things that relate to this type of campaign.

If you're planning this type of campaign I recommend reading the "Next Men" trade paperbacks, at least the first one. Also, the relatively new comic "Supreme Power"--the first few issues especially--deals with similar themes.

6. What type of contingency plan will the goverment have in order to control this group? Or what plan do they have in case anyone goes "rogue"?

Bombs in the brain is always a good one--teeny tiny little bombs that can mirror the effects of a stroke or a heart attack and are tracked everywhere on earth via satellite.

 

Built-in weaknesses that their creators know how to exploit. They each have an Achilles heel, their own version of kryptonite, or whatever, and there's a trained team of highly-skilled operatives who have the weapons to take 'em down if necessary.

 

One idea that'd be not-so-popular is to have them create a killing machine in addition to the heroes, relatively mindless but knowing all the strengths and weaknesses of the characters and knowing how to exploit them. He should be able to whoop the PCs' collective arses. This man/being/creature has a bomb in it's head, too, or some sort of nano-programming so that if the PCs are killed, he dies too. Think of Doomsday's origins (scientists genetically recreating him over and over again until he can overcome just about any attack).

 

G'luck!

[sinanju]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

3. How would the public *really* react to such a thing. I'm not talking about how they do in 3 color comic books. I'm talking about what might really happen if this really and truly happened tomorrow.

 

In the REAL world, as opposed to the world of comics, scientists don't work in a vacuum. There are no soooooper-genius scientists operating decades ahead of their peers. Edison invented the lightbulb, but he wasn't all that far ahead of his contemporaries in the field. Ditto the Wright Brothers and many other inventors.

 

If the US government has the technology to effectively engineer/clone superheroes, it's because most of the pieces of the puzzle already exist. The state of the art is nearly there even if the US government is the organization that put the effort into the final piece. Other nations (and/or corporations) aren't going take all that long to replicate the result.

 

Nuclear weapons aren't all that hard to puzzle out. They're not more widespread than they are because the _parts_ (primarily the fuel) are made hard to get, and trying gets you noticed by men with guns who will come to interfere. Human DNA is ubiquitous.

[paul_runstedler]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

1) Gene/DNA splicing. Whether it be from aliens or animals, you can make it work.

 

2) Raiding enemy camps, shocktroops.

 

3) The conspiracy theorists would go absolutely nuts. We're talking a rebirth of the industry.

 

4) Kill or sequester all those involved with the project from the cleaning lady on up. Keep the characters constantly on some mission. If they never have sit down and rest time, they'll never be able to put their super human minds to the task.

 

5) d'oh!

 

6) Remember the lycene(sp?) contingency from Jurassic park? If the government created them, it surely has the means to take them apart. I follow the by-line that the government doesn't unveil something(usually a weapon system) until it already has something more powerful in the wings to compensate for it. Perhaps there was one superhero before this group but the government got it and covered it up ala Area 51 theories. Think of it like this: What if the US government had found the Kryptonian baby and not the Kent family? They keep 'it' under wraps and used its DNA to form the current team of supers. Oh man this question has to be the single best out of the ones you asked. So many routes to go!

 

2) Hmmm, so if we're talking Iraq, the Gov'd send them in to wipe out a well protected group of enemies. Wondering is there something that particular supers would really excel at that a group of highly trained navy seals just couldn't do very well. Guess it depends on the powers of the supers though doesn't it. Mentalists could have some *very* useful purposes, whereas Bricks not so much...

 

3) Yeah. Conspiracy theorists. People might claim lots of stuff about how the super beings are from out space, to they lived under the earth and just recently emerged, to they were grown from a test-tube by the government .

 

4) Keep 'em busy I like that one. Also, I'm trying to figure out how to protect the fact that they're memories are implanted. Joe-Mighty-Fist might remember being brought up in Wilsonville, Nebraska, there would be no-one there who remembered him. If the media ever found out he was from there, people'd be digging all over trying to find out who knew him, his family, etc etc. Perhaps one rule of the membership is that they cannot tell anyone outside their companions where they are from.

 

6) I like the fact that they may have had one before the group. Their beta project. One person, who didn't take to the mental manipulations too well. He's too unpredictable, and crazy, so they canned the project. I think this would be a second contingency plan though. First, and easiest would be to have this Neural Bomb someone mentioned. Of course when the party finally figures out they've been controlled, and attempts to break free, they'll have to figure out a way around the neural bomb. But when they do, out comes "Plan B" ('B' for Beta. HA!)

 

Keep those ideas coming. Great stuff!

[paul_runstedler]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

Other nations would probably find that a nation that has government sanctioned/controlled supers to be a serious threat to their sovereignty and begin creating supers of their own to deal with the possible threat.

 

That's about all I have for now, more later as it comes to me.

 

Great idea! I'm thinking perhaps only hours after the world discovers the super-group, Russia, China, North Korea, etc are phoning the president asking for some type of anti-super treaty. Something that would protect them against attacks made by this super-group.

 

How would the UN react? Touchy subject I know, but man I'm thinking there'd by some very fierce reactions here. What could the UN do though? Not much I suppose, but any ideas on how this might play out?

[paul_runstedler]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

But how they interact with the rest of the world could be problematic - do they have friends or coworkers (in a secret ID) that they socialize with? Pretty much everyone in their circle would have to be a government plant,

 

I think to keep up this masquerade, you would make their government contact a combination of the old Gyrich liasion with the Avengers, and Professor X - it should be a lot harder for them to discover the truth that way. (He could be from an earlier "generation" of experiments.)

 

Yeah. I think for their family's own protection, they'd have to limit contact with them. You know, in order to protect them against your enemies that sort of bs. Perhaps phone conversations over secure lines (with people who are simply pretending to be ma and pa). Sooner or later something has to slip though. It always does in the movies

 

2. How the government uses them will be interesting. I think the question of "Why has the government decided to reveal their presence at this time?" needs to be answered first. Was a Congressional Committee or General Accounting Office audit getting close to the truth? Was there a leak? Or as Scifi suggested, is this just a distraction so the government can work on their really badass paranormal project?

Good point, hadn't thought down those lines yet. Perhaps another country was beta-testing their creation, and the US wanted to be the first to have supers (akin to walking on the moon). Perhaps one of the first missions might be to seek out and destroy the other country's supers.

 

3. After the first publicity stunt, the public will have very different ideas about how they should be used. Someone with a spouse fighting in Iraq will be wondering why the guy who can't be hurt by bullets or car bombs isn't fighting there. Those on the left will be concerned by this new potential threat to privacy, especially if there's a mentalist. And the entertainment based media will be pushing very hard for personal details.

 

4. Rather than make it a total "black op" (though some deaths may be necesary) take a page from Men in Black, and "leak" something close to the truth - to the Weekly World News, to the Chris Carter X-Files production team (great pitch to the network!), etc. Discredit the idea before it starts. A good press secretary would also help here: "We created them? We can't even get the president to stop saying 'nu-cu-lur".)

 

5. Will this lead to a paranormal arms race? How will the Russians, Chinese, Islamic nations react? Do they already have programs of their own, using the same or different methods?

 

3. Yes, this could get hairy, but the supers will be kept at arms reach from this sort of thing. Though I think they'll hear about it in the paper a lot.

 

4. Yeah, now the trick is to come up with a specific idea that makes sense...

 

5. Paranormal arms race. I like it. I love it. I think I'll start every gaming session by handing the characters two or three front page newspaper stories that have surface since their introduction.

[paul_runstedler]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

"Homeland security" is always good. Or maybe the government simply wants its own loyal team of heroes in case other heroes go rogue. Maybe the faction of the government that 'grew' the heroes has its own agenda, some sort of coup, perhaps, or simply running "black ops" that the Prez and the cabinet don't know about (plausible deniability and all that).

Homeland security. Yes. Wondering if the plan might partially be to increase morale in a time where people live in fear daily of terrorist attacks. Perhaps this group takes the fight to the offending countries, etc etc.

 

Depends on what you're asking. If you're asking how the public would react to a government super-team, I'm guessing they would react according to whatever the overall public opinion was at the moment. Good or bad, I doubt a team of superheroes in and of itself would sway the public's opinion too far one way or the other unless the government or the team itself did something particularly noteworthy.

I guess what I'm asking is how would they react if this news became public in the US say...tomorrow.

If you're planning this type of campaign I recommend reading the "Next Men" trade paperbacks, at least the first one. Also, the relatively new comic "Supreme Power"--the first few issues especially--deals with similar themes.

 

Bombs in the brain is always a good one--teeny tiny little bombs that can mirror the effects of a stroke or a heart attack and are tracked everywhere on earth via satellite.

 

Thanks for the reference. Will be trying to get a copy of NextMen and do some research.

 

Great ideas. am starting to flesh this whole thing out in my mind...

[paul_runstedler]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

In the REAL world, as opposed to the world of comics, scientists don't work in a vacuum. There are no soooooper-genius scientists operating decades ahead of their peers. Edison invented the lightbulb, but he wasn't all that far ahead of his contemporaries in the field. Ditto the Wright Brothers and many other inventors.

 

If the US government has the technology to effectively engineer/clone superheroes, it's because most of the pieces of the puzzle already exist. The state of the art is nearly there even if the US government is the organization that put the effort into the final piece. Other nations (and/or corporations) aren't going take all that long to replicate the result.

Good point. Referenced above as well. Thats perhaps my best reason for having to yank back the curtain on this super group.

1) other countries are not far behind, so the US gov wants to be the first.

2) They need to use the supers in order to halt development of these other super-groups in other countries. Any takers for countries that might be close to inventing the same thing? North Korea? China? Japan?

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

4) Keep 'em busy I like that one. Also, I'm trying to figure out how to protect the fact that they're memories are implanted. Joe-Mighty-Fist might remember being brought up in Wilsonville, Nebraska, there would be no-one there who remembered him. If the media ever found out he was from there, people'd be digging all over trying to find out who knew him, his family, etc etc. Perhaps one rule of the membership is that they cannot tell anyone outside their companions where they are from.

 

6) I like the fact that they may have had one before the group. Their beta project. One person, who didn't take to the mental manipulations too well. He's too unpredictable, and crazy, so they canned the project. I think this would be a second contingency plan though. First, and easiest would be to have this Neural Bomb someone mentioned. Of course when the party finally figures out they've been controlled, and attempts to break free, they'll have to figure out a way around the neural bomb. But when they do, out comes "Plan B" ('B' for Beta. HA!)

 

Keep those ideas coming. Great stuff!

 

As for the 'history': A good option is to give them someone _else's_ memories. That way it's easy to explain where the memories came from (copied from the original), and there is a complete back history.

 

Of course, if they ever meet "themselves"...

 

 

 

As for plan B:

Perhaps some kind of rogue "cannibal" meta; he can sense them, and drain their energies (whatever powers them), somehow. That way, you can run, but really - you can't hide. For extra terror, throw in some NPC ally heroes - who he kills, and absorbs the powers of.

[Siberian Tiger]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

Good point. Referenced above as well. Thats perhaps my best reason for having to yank back the curtain on this super group.

1) other countries are not far behind, so the US gov wants to be the first.

2) They need to use the supers in order to halt development of these other super-groups in other countries. Any takers for countries that might be close to inventing the same thing? North Korea? China? Japan?

 

What if the US Government are not working alone on this project - perhaps they are assisted, either knowingly or not by aliens who are trying to develop humainty's potential for superpowers to prepare them for intergalactic conquest etc.

And maybe those aliens are working with other countries or groups at the same time..... all of which are coming to fruition...

[Southern Cross]

Re: New Champs Campaign. Advise/Suggestions appreciated

 

So aliens have been working with Terran governments to develop superhumans for at least 15years (since even now cloning technology isn't up to the task of cloning humans,much less superhumans).

So we're dealing with aliens who presumably need superbeings for some reason.Furthermore,if it takes 15 years to grow them,it's clearly for some long-term goal.