Superhero RPGs

While it is true that the majority of my tabletop RPG (and even computer RPG) experience has been with the classic Dungeons & Dragons, kind of inferred by the title of the blog, I think I have mentioned before that I also play other RPGs. Cyberpunk 2020 (and hopefully Red after it comes out here soon... or recently if this article takes as long to write as most of my others do), Deadlands, dabbled in Rifts/TMNT/Robotech, Shadowrun, MechWarrior... the list, it just keeps going and going. Anyway, for caped superhero, comic book parody, I have turned mostly to Champions. About a year or so ago, I got an itch and built up a backstory for a world, ready to throw my D&D players into a one shot, in case they got bored with my usual hack'n'slash 5e games (or they watched one too many reruns of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, whatever). I had a "brilliant" idea, typed it all out, even did a little map of the state of the world, politically, and patted myself on the back. Thought I had done a real bang up job, and my players would enjoy playing in the world immensely. Until recently.

I have a friend who is big into comics, so much that we have been discussing his plans to open up a comic book store locally, and I realized something about my fantastic little slice of gaming heaven - it is a fantastic story, very much in the vein of many deconstructionist comic books that have been popular in the past couple of years. Watchmen, The Boys, Invincible... that dark and gritty, far more realistic version of caped superheros in the world but have stopped giving one damn about anyone but themselves. Where governments control the superheros and kill any who try to step out of line. Sounds like a fun story, huh? It is, but after thinking it over, I don't know that world is that fun to play a Champions game in. Here, read what I wrote for yourself.



Superhumans begin appearing in WW2, due to population density or a mutation of influenza or the common cold or magic coming back into the world or something, no one is sure what caused it, but the human genome has mutated and superhumans now exist on Earth. The UN is still formed following the end of WW2, also still ended by the dropping of several nuclear weapons on Japan.

Many nations begin enacting legislation to register and track all superhumans, as well as legislation to make punishment in crimes involving superhumans/superhuman abilities more stringent.

In the 1950s, the world is still in a state of shock and disbelief. Germany is whole as it was never split due to being completely overrun by the Soviets, but left out of the Warsaw Pact as the USSR was still trying to consolidate the rest of Eastern Europe and having many problems. As the mutation shows up in every so many hundred thousand(s) people across the globe, China had a very large number of superhumans appear within their population. Enough that China has another Xinhai Revolution after the end of WW2, but this one restores China to a dynastic empire as most of the native superhumans turned out to be classical monarchists instead of hard-core communists. Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Taiwan, and many smaller island nations band together to present a united front against a once more powerful China, calling itself the Pan-Pacific League. Great Britain loses almost all of its colonies, being expelled forcibly from India and the Middle East, and retracting its influence elsewhere due to unpopular views from the locals. The Middle East reorganizes under a Turkey-Saudi Arabian coalition, is still heavily Islamic and calls itself Persia once again. Israel, barely formed after the end of WW2 is not strong enough, militarily or politically, to withstand the formation of Persia and is subsumed, the minority Jewish population being tolerated like many other minorities in Persia, such as the Kurds and other non-Islamic religious or non-Arabic ethnic groups.

By the 1960s, manufacturing and computer technology is on par with the technology we see in our world in the 2000’s, thanks to all the superhuman mutations that resulted in extremely high IQs. The Cold War between the US and the USSR is in full swing, though without their fellow communist brothers in China, the USSR does not have the Koreans nor the Vietnamese to back, so the Vietnam and Korean wars with America don’t occur. Most of the Cold War involves espionage and superhuman conflict throughout Eastern Europe Warsaw Pact countries. After Kennedy tries and fails to base nuclear missiles and superhumans in Persia and Khrushchev tries and fails to do the same in Cuba, the US annexes most of the Caribbean island nations into territories, some through public democratic votes of those nations to join, some through displays of superhuman power, and some through espionage led coups. Many of the non-Warsaw Pact European countries (Germany, France, Italy, and Great Britain, plus many of the smaller western ones) form the European Union, a sharing of economies and military protection. Most of Africa (the non-Islamic/Middle Eastern parts and the countries not touching the Mediterranean) is brought into one new nation called the Zulu Concordant and many European colonists die while the rest are expelled.

The 1970s sees not only the USA landing on the moon, but a USA colony being established, along with visits from the Soviets, the European Union, the Pan-Pacific League and many others, both in rockets and simply superhumans going under their own power. The European Union establishes a GPS satellite network, also backed by the Pan-Pacific League, and most countries have established high bandwidth cellular networks delivering both communication and entertainment. Super lightweight (yet still safe), all electric vehicles have replaced 75% of all road vehicles (both private and commercial) in many nations. The oil crisis doesn’t occur due to a lowering demand for oil and Persia’s economy crashes. The military superpowers (USA/European Union and the Warsaw Pact) begin developing energy weapons and other new battlefield technologies (stealth, sensors, transportation, medicine, training) and the Pan-Pacific League and China (known internally as the Everlasting Empire of the Tian Dynasty) both begin building giant robots (why? because fuck you, that’s why).

The 1980s was a decade filled with war and strife. Focusing more on their conflict with the West, the Soviets fail to notice a Chinese invasion of Siberia until it occurs, but manage to rally enough to drive the Chinese back to pre-invasion borders. The Pan-Pacific League helps out (not to help the Soviets but to get in a lick on the Chinese while they can) by invading southern China and freeing many Chinese holdings in the Malaysian islands as well as Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos (but not Tibet, which was their goal). The USA and European Union (now including Canada… I know, right?) do not take a poke at the Soviets, instead consolidating and strengthening their respective borders and using that lack of direct action as huge political leverage after the invasion fails. The China-Russo War drags on 5 long years, and disrupts the world’s economies as every nation spent vast amounts of capital to build up armies to deal with spill over or take advantage of the confusion. Almost every country not directly involved has a flare up afterwards with every one of their neighbors, most subsiding after a short period of time, but some flare ups (particularly in South America) last for the next several years, consisting of low level, low scale conflicts. Medical technology still manages to advance enough to discover cures for most cancers, AIDS, tuberculosis, and many other diseases, though the cure for the common cold did cause a small zombie outbreak, so that cure was locked away.

The 1990s sees many technological advancements entering the civilian sector from the military R&D of the previous decade. The US expands its colony on the moon, the European Union and the USSR also establish colonies, and the US begin building larger satellites and space docks at various Lagrange points in near Earth orbit. The Soviet satellite states of Eastern Europe are fully integrated with all internal borders erased, at least to the international community as the USSR cracks down even more and becomes more restrictive on the lives of its citizens. The Soviets also focus their attentions to the east and begin developing Siberia. The rest of the world starts using autonomous, flying vehicles due to the technology explosion during the China-Russo War. Brazil absorbs most of its neighboring South American countries, forming the Império do Brasil while America absorbs Mexico and Central America. Persia’s economy rebounds as they have been using improvements in technology since the late ‘70s to increase irrigation and expand their industrial base (all that oil needed for plastic, and everything is made of plastic) and increase their population. By the end of the decade, the first true AIs are being revealed, scientists are close to developing antigravity technology, and the US sends a manned mission to Mars.

The year is now 2003. The party is either a group of registered superhumans (“capes”, though not many supers wear them these days, never really did, but the iconic Superman from 1938 comics with a flowing red cape stuck) working for the US of A, or they are vigilantes trying to do their part and dodging both the supervillains (who are all big time, because the small fry tended to end up dead over the past 5 decades, instead of in jail) and government tracker teams. Being a cape is like owning a main battle tank - you can be a danger to everyone around you and project death and destruction in a wide radius while being very difficult to bring down in return. The government wants you under their control, or in jail, or dead.



See? That sure sounds like a fantastic story you would like to follow along, but think about running that Champions game - you work for some world government or another, or are running from them all. Are you fighting against the "bad guys" (who may or may not be bad, just not legal in the eyes of the/all government) publicly while working with them in private to change or overthrow the government? Yes, if the whole group is into it and you play a long-term campaign, that would be fantastic fun. But for my intended purpose - a backstory for a possible one shot for my group of some comic book nerds and the rest that are only tangentially interested in comic books because of the MCU - not so much. Ah well, I'll hold onto it for now, and if we do decide to play a one shot, I'll pick whatever sub-genre interests the players most (I like Iron Age personally) and we'll go from there. Hey look, Champions 5th and 6th Editions put out a setting book. That problem solved itself.