Invincible in SWADE Super Powers

I have been trying for most of this past year to get a SWADE game going, SWADE being the current edition of the Savage Worlds universal tabletop roleplaying game, Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. Of course, you can't just say "hey, let's play some SWADE!" like you can say "hey, let's play some D&D!" and have folks understand what's going on, there are just too many settings and genres you can play around with in an RPG like SWADE, you've left out some vital information to your potential playing group. For my own planned SWADE campaign, I have the thought to Game Master (GM) 3 rotating settings (which I have been calling The Revolver in my head, in honor of The Beatles album of the same name) - the classic Deadlands setting that started it all and I played all the way back in the 1990s when it first came out; a super secret setting that I want to use to introduce my players to both SWADE and this world setting (trust me, this being a secret fits this particular setting so well); and last, I want to play the Super Powers Companion. By the title of this post, I'm hoping you realize that I'm going to be talking about that last setting, but first some background.

My own personal history with comic book super heroes RPGs started with the venerable Champions, more than 20 years ago as I type this. Champions is known for being able to create most anything you will find in a comic book, but that same modularity makes the game very complicated and very hard to get into for new players. But I had a really good group that knew the system very well, and I was not a new player to RPGs at that time, just new to Champions, so we played some epic campaigns (which is what you hope for when playing a comic book super hero RPG). Huge cinematic action scenes, bombastic monologues from evil overlords, fantastic costumes - everything you have come to expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and the better parts of the DC Extended Universe) and comic books of the past 100 years or so. Whatever we found cool, in TV or movies or comic books, we played it. We played a sci-fi setting where I had found an action figure where someone had crossed Marvel's Venom with the xenomorph from the Alien movies. I wish I had saved that image, as all I can find now is this action figure, but it doesn't seem right. Anyway, for this sci-fi Champions game, that is what I played, this creepy alien with teeth and claws and faster than thought. And it was a ton of fun.

Which brings us to today and the new Super Powers Companion (or SPC for ease of typing). SPC, much like Champions before it, is merely a set of rules with a generic comic book setting because neither the folks behind Champions nor Savage Worlds/SPC could afford to pay the copywrite for any of the big, well known universes. Instead, in addition to the generic settings that are like an amalgamation of all the well known comic book universes, both rule sets give you the tools to file the numbers off your own preferred comic book setting and play however you want. You want to have a team up between Polverine (with his high healing factor and hyper-titanium skeleton and claws) and Stuperman (with every superpower known to comic book reading fans) facing off against the forces of H.U.D.R.A., who has infiltrated the government and every facet of normal life? Given enough time and interest, you can make that happen, and as long as you don't try to sell your creations to the public at large, no one from the parent corporations are going to show up at your doorstep with offensive legal instruments. Offensive, not as in "I am offended" but as in "attack" or the opposite of "defensive". 

I've been thinking about what setting I would run for quite a while now, even writing another post here on the blog long before the latest version of SPC came out, and while that other super heroes setting I came up is interesting as a mental exercise (or a setting I would use if I were to start writing my own comic books... yes, writing, as I have the same drawing skills that the Universe gave to doorknobs), but not something that I think a group of players would find terribly entertaining to be dealing with. So, the answer is, then which set of caped super heroes - because that is what I want to play in SPC, caped (or no capes) super heroes, and more in the vein of the Modern Era (or late Bronze Age) of comics, with a grittier, more realistic sandbox to play around in. I could use the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is pretty easy to relay to your players, you can tell them to watch all of the movie trailers (as intimated by many episodes of the Savage Interludes podcast, including the most recent one (at least, that I've listened to), which has got me thinking of what I would do with SPC) and that will give them all the in-universe setting information you need to know. You could do the same with the DC Extended Universe, if you want to use that setting and characters more. Or you could do the same with the comic books, if you don't like how the movies portrayed those stories. Do you like The Boys or Jupiter's Legacy or Sweet Tooth or Paper Girls or Walking Dead or one of the hundred others of comic book inspired/adjacent TV and streaming shows that have come out in the past 2 decades. Or to put it a different way, do you want to run a caped super hero BIF BAM WHAMMO fest? Or a murder mystery? Or a zombie apocalypse survival horror? Or a sci-fi alien bug hunt? Or anime mechas flying across an alien solar system? Or fighting the demons of Hell as a holy agent of Mother Church? You can play a wide variety of settings and story types, and find examples of them in comics and other popular media. Now, if you have a setting/story combo that already has a Savage Worlds setting book (like steampunk meets magic in the Wild West, otherwise known as Deadlands) or other popular tabletop RPG (like a medieval fantasy as seen in The Legend of Vox Machina - yes, world, Dungeons & Dragons has long cornered that market, no need to keep messing with the formula), save yourself the struggle and just play that game or SWADE setting instead. 

What have I been thinking of going? Definitely been wanting a caped/un-caped super heroes in the classic vein of the big team books (Justice League, Avengers, X-Men, The Authority) but whose world and stories am I wanting to dip my toes into? I have been watching and reading a lot of Invincible lately, and I really like the world setting and the big story twist (don't know what that twist is? if so, and you like comic books, then you are the only person on the planet who doesn't know the twist in this tale... and I won't spoil it for you, but really, it's one of the best I've seen in any form of modern media) but I got to thinking about what I like from the book/show and how I would use that in my SPC game. Obviously, the twist is the big draw... but if my players know what the twist is, and I introduce them to the characters direct from Invincible, will there be any surprise or will they groan the minute I set the stage for them, first session in the campaign? That's what I'm afraid of, the twist in the story is great, but if you know it, it's hard to ignore and pretend like you don't know it, and it's just not as entertaining. 

My options, as I see them, are i can use the characters of the setting, minus a couple of the key players directly involved in the twist, and play around with them. Or, I can take some of the other stories and plots from the series that don't intersect the twist, and put them on completely different characters so the party members who are familiar with the comics won't peg to it just by an NPC's name. That last one would mean I would have to come up with characters that are new and don't come from the Invincible universe, but I am okay with that. Part of what made Invincible so popular with readers and then viewers is how familiar it feels, like the creators worked hard to make all of the characters vaguely familiar, all the normal archetypes you've been reading in comics forever, just with the serial numbers filed off of them. That does mean there are not a lot of memorable characters in Invincible, but it does mean I can use the generic set of supers and villains the come in the SPC, just rename them a bit and start playing with them how I want. 

I think the biggest theme I'd like to appropriate is starting the party in high school, possibly even a Hogwarts-like boarding school for budding/potential supers. Or maybe not a high school, that may be too young for my tastes - other than my knees working again, I would loathe going back to high school - maybe instead go for a college for supers experience. I could steal ideas from Strixhaven and East Texas University (ETU), as they're more collegiate, though if I stick with high school I could also use parts of PS-238 and My Hero Academia.

Another theme or group I want to use comes direct from the comic book (we haven't seen them in the cartoon, maybe just a passing mention) is the Lizard League. Think Cobra from G.I. Joe, except with a lizard theme and some super powered villains at the top of the hierarchy. I could go with either group name or come up with my own, but they'd make a great arch-villain group at many of the lower levels of the campaign, and they can expand their powers and numbers as necessary.

I also really like the Martian/Sequid problem seen in both the cartoon and the comic - basically there are people living on Mars, well, underneath Mars' surface, and these Martians are super-powered beings compared to us mere mortal humans. They can change their shapes, assume the shapes of other beings like doppelgangers, even stretch themselves out like Mr Fantastic and Plastic Man. The Sequids are an alien race that crashed onto Mars generations ago. They are race that share a hive mind, but can only connect to each other when they are attached to the neural pathways (nerves, spinal columns, and brains) of another being, which they dominate and use to augment their own mental powers and as vehicles. Fortunately for the Martians, due to their shapechanging powers, the Sequids can't interface with them, so the Martians have enslaved them for physical labor ever since the Sequids arrived. That is until the United States gets it into their head to send a manned mission to Mars, because of course the Martians on Earth haven't told anybody what is going on back on Mars, and the Sequids take over one of the astronauts... and all hell breaks loose. Reskin the pertinent details - they're not on Mars, they're on Europa, and the Sequids don't look like calamari, they look like cockroaches drawn by HR Giger and called, I don't know, Skrixlings. Whatever you want to paint it up as, the base idea is still the same and you get to play with it so your players don't see it coming... but when they realize what you're "stealing", they feel pretty smart and they're still enjoying the game.

Of course, if you feed your players something familiar, and they think they know what source material you're copying, it's so much sweeter when you show them something else that seems like it's from that same source. But then, when they get that "ah-ha! I know what this is!" look in their eyes, you show the twist and go a completely different direction with it. The subversion I'm pondering has to do with the big twist in the Invincible setting, and, without spoiling it, I want to show my players what they think is that very twist... but then change it so goes completely different. That change in the familiar, that subversion of the expected, that is where the payoff lies, where you give your players what they think is inevitable, and then make it something else. Trying not to spoil the big twist in Invincible but still making it understandable for those of you who know what said twist is - first off, the father and son don't exist in this version of the setting, or even the "dab of paint and a new name" alternate version, that's too close and anyone who knows the twist will spot it quick. Second, turn the twist around - the father (or his people, you could do it without him ever showing up) isn't the bad guy, so when the good guys from Invincible do show up, they give the same warning about the father, but only to lull the world into a false sense of security, because they're actually the bad guys. Or another option is to set up the world exactly as it appears in Invincible (minus the father and son), and instead of the good guys coming forward with their deceit, have the father (or one of his people) come forward and give the good guy "we're here to save you" speech, same names as in the comic/cartoon. Remember, bad guys think they are doing good deeds, so even though they give the good guy speech, the players (at least one at the table will have realized what setting we're playing in, and will recognize the father and his people) will be convinced they're the bad guys and try to fight them. And either lose to them, or drive them away. At which point the "good guys" show up, oh, here, let me help you up... PSYCH!! We just conquered Earth! At which point it either becomes a guerilla war type struggle, the rebels versus the evil empire, or go straight into the classic Necessary Evil campaign.

So many good ideas to steal, er, appropriate, no, still not right, pay homage to, that's the ticket! Pay homage to, so many good ideas to honor and hold up and admire... and twist and abuse for my own sick little entertainments. What? That last bit was out loud? Crap, gotta put a volume know on that inside voice control... 

Old School Tips and Tricks

I was discussing with the newest player to my table the other day some ideas for his character and was reminded that hardly any of my players have been alive as long as I have been playing tabletop RPGs, much less playing them for nearly as long. Part of my job as a long time gamer and specifically as their experienced DM is to help all of them play the various games better with lessons learned from past campaigns. I mean, it is not something you as a player should expect from every one of your DM/GM/Referee/Storyteller/Whatnots as part of the unwritten social contract between gamers and DMs, but as an experienced and long-time gamer turned DM, I feel for me this is something I should have been paying attention to since Day One. In my game, we are at the end of a side quest which will bring the party up to level 11 and ready for the next major arc of the overarching campaign (campaign goal - get the party to 20th level and have fun while getting there), so I figured now is a good time to review how I as the DM am doing with the players, how my players are doing both from my perspective and their own, have a bit of downtime activities, and impart some "wisdom". Really these are just tricks us old time grognards used to make the games we played more palatable, well before the time of the internet, 3d printers, and pocket computers (what we call "cell phones", far different than what we called cell phones around the time that Wizards of the Coast bought D&D from TSR and released 3rd edition), and for as cheap as possible because we were all broke, minimum wage workers. Also, as the COVID-19 "isolate in place" orders are about to lift in our state/county/city, it will be nice to get out of our various houses, see our friends in person and away from voices over the internet.

Before I get into this, do not mistake me, I am not bemoaning the modern technology that we are enjoying. I am very much busy enjoying my 3d printer (currently down for maintenance, but most recently working on modular bar pieces) and the use of such technology as Discord and Roll20 to play online during the COVID isolate in place orders, Google Drive and Docs to share files with the group as well as gather files for the campaign, and all the various free bits of software, both from WotC and 3rd party designers. However, some of these technologies can become very expensive - the 3d printer addiction will likely outstrip the rest, only because my video gaming addiction meant I already have an expensive gaming rig for that addiction and not necessarily for tabletop RPGs - both in software and hardware and may not be for every party. The free and paid character creators and sheets from D&D Beyond, for example, work very well, but unless you are able to spend quite a bit of money on a tablet, the sheet is way too slow at accessing information for comfort at a gaming table. Plus, you lose something in muscle memory when you create something digitally versus writing it onto paper. As such, these tips and tricks are not for every group (they may not even be for my own group, we will find out soon), but have worked well for me in the past.

The following is for my D&D 5e campaign, but I have used many of these in other tabletop RPGs, and most of these are for the players as well as the DM. For everything that I purchased for this week's presentation to my players, I went to WalMart and priced everything there, as I wanted to try and get the most common prices across the US, though you may find these cheaper elsewhere, like at Staples or Office Depot, or even online at Amazon.

The first and probably most relevant to modern technology is fine tip dry erase markers (found at WalMart for $4.74 for 5 in a variety of colors). I say that these are the most relevant to modern technology as dry/wet erase boards are far more available and prevalent than they were 20 years ago. In fact, back when 3rd edition first came out and I first ran into this idea, we did not have dry erase markers, they were called overhead projector markers (still are) as there were not any dry erase boards but schools had been using overhead projectors for decades. Dry erase markers are fantastic for both the party and the DM, as the DM can create a map board with some plexiglass (which can get a bit expensive for the larger sheets, but cost can be offset by having your players chip in to a party fund) and poster boards. You tape the poster boards to the back of the plexiglass after you mark out your 1 inch (or whatever, I am considering a 1/2 inch grid and utilize 15mm minis instead of 28/32mm heroics to get more room for maneuver in my battles) with a simple yard stick and a permanent marker on the poster boards. In the picture below, you can see some of my 3d printed walls and terrain bits on my own 1 inch grid board.

these have all been painted by now, and look fantastic

The dry erase markers are great to quickly mark out any terrain or pertinent information that I do not have a model or miniature or marker for. Note that I use regular chisel tip markers on my battle map, just to cover more area quickly, but the fine tips work well for certain applications and should be your first purchase over the chisel tips. The other use of the dry erase markers, more pertinent to the players and why I said that fine tips should be your first purchase is character sheets. Now, I am not saying your players should use the dry erase markers directly on their character sheets, but in addition to the markers, they need to invest in some sheet protectors. I found, on my little WalMart expedition, a pack of 20 economy sheet protectors for $0.88. Since each player is only going to need a few each, this pack is enough for my party, at least for their current characters. Once the players have their regular character sheets filled out (the stock ones direct from WotC are good looking enough, and if no one in your group has a computer and printer to print them off, someone can do it from work, or the party can pitch in and have a bunch printed up at your local Staples or Office Depot, or even most public libraries offer print for pay services) with pencils, they slip them into the sheet protectors and use the dry erase markers on the outside of the sheet protectors to record temporary information - current and max HP, Death Saves, any temporary buffs or debuffs to skills or stats or any other characteristic, XP gains, and even keep track of spells cast and material components consumed. Once you get to the end of the game session, the players simply pull out their sheets and write down anything they need to know for the next game session. I am kicking myself for forgetting this one, as my players' sheets look atrocious, with notes and markings and even eraser rub holes, to the point that I have printed up pristine new sheets for everyone and part of next session will be them transferring their characters to the new sheets. And I have a ton of dry erase markers floating around that I have been using specifically with this campaign, so not doing this before now is doubly frustrating for me.

Speaking of pencils, I provide to my players BIC Matic Grip Mechanical Pencils that I get in bulk from the local Sam's Club. This could be something your group pitches in for, as they are used by the whole group. You do not have to buy that specific brand, but I have been using them for multiple decades with great success, and if you do have a bulk store account, can be had for not a lot of money per pencil. I suggest a mechanical pencil, as you do not have to worry about providing sharpeners, but if you want to go with something more reusable than the BICs I shared above, you can find nice ones and refills for both the leads and the erasers easily enough. I find the BICs write well, erase well, and last quite a long time, but when they run out of lead or eraser, I do not feel I wasted my money throwing it away and grabbing a new one.

Next up is something to keep said sheet protectors in. Currently I keep all of the character sheets at my house so that if any of the players do not make a game, we can pass off their character to someone else to keep the game going. To that end, I had a mess of manila folders leftover from other uses at my house and gave one to each player to hold their sheets, and even stapled in the crit/fumble charts and the initiative chart we use in the game. However, I really should have listened to Seth Skorkowsky and started the campaign with each player having their own 3-ring binders that I had prefilled with paper and sheet protectors and other info. During my trip to WalMart, I found the cheapest option which has no inside or outside pockets, merely some plastic front and back covers and the requisite 3 rings to hold onto punched items. These run $0.88 and will suffice for the very economically-minded gamers out there, and they do not take up a bunch of room. However, even going up to a half inch binder with cardboard covers and extra pockets inside and out will only run you $2.64 apiece. You do not need much more than about half an inch ring size, as anything more than that and you will want to clean out old, unneeded information. I am upgrading my players this next session, but this could easily be another group purchase to further defray the costs for each of the individuals.

Of course, if you have a 3 ring binder, just holding some character sheets in it seems a bit of a waste of space. That is why I am also recommending that, as a player or a DM, you put in some filler paper, preferably college ruled, which I found 150 page packs for $0.82. Why regular notebook paper? Easy, you take notes on notebook paper. After the basic rulebook for whatever system you are playing and your character sheet for that game, having something to take and keep notes on is probably the most important item in your inventory. And yes, I am including dice in that equation, you can always borrow dice from someone else at the table, or I have even played in games where the group could afford exactly one set of dice and so the game master rolled for everybody. Yet having somewhere other than merely the back of your character sheets to write notes will mean you are better prepared to play the game - what is the name of the NPC quest giver? the local ruler? the big bad? what is the name of the city/kingdom/area you are in? what was that rumor(s) we heard in the tavern again? how much gold are we getting to save the son/daughter of the local important person? what was that cryptic poem carved into the front door of this dungeon? Note paper is there to take notes, and you should definitely be taking notes in any RPG, even in one shot adventures. A couple of years back, before I joined the group that morphed into the group I am running games for, I was jones'ing for a game bad enough that I went and played a game at my friendly local gaming store's (FLGS) Adventurers League night. I do not have anything against the Adventurers League, in fact I think it is a fantastic idea and if I had more time in my life, would probably offer to run AL night at my FLGS. Anyway, I show up, having taken a gaming hiatus pretty much from the introduction of 3.5 through 4th edition D&D, and run a one shot with a pregenerated character they handed me that night. I ran across that character sheet a week or so back, and the back of the character sheet, the blank part of it, is full of notes, little drawings of maps, a puzzle we ran into in the dungeon, and that was from a gaming session that lasted 3 hours. Plus, writing something down manually means you retain it better than if you just type it into your phone, tablet, or computer (and far better than just trying to remember whatever). Notes, while not often discussed when people talk about tabletop RPGs, turn out to be very important.

Speaking of notes, the next thing you should add to your brand spanky new 3-ring binder is some graph paper (which I found also at WalMart, 80 pages for $1.76). Very much old school, but I think graph paper is very useful for dungeon-crawl type medieval fantasy RPGs. Now, not every player at the table needs to map out the dungeon to the exact dimensions, but it would behoove at least one player to be the party cartographer and do so. Have you been to every room on this level, cannot locate the way forward, and is there an odd empty space between a couple of the rooms? Chances are there is a secret door in one of those rooms that you have not located, but you only notice that if you really pay attention to the dungeon cartography. Is it 100% required in any game? No, but having the tools available, and especially for under $2, makes this a good addition to any player's toolkit. All of you game masters out there, should definitely be practicing their map creation skills. You do not have to be Dyson Logos, but if you want good tactical combat, you should at least learn by messing around with graph paper. Yes, there are plenty of good graphing programs for free on the internet, but there is something about physically drawing out a dungeon (or an abandoned warehouse in the combat zone, if you are playing Cyberpunk 2020) that ties you to it and makes it your own.

The next bit of old school trickery I am passing along is to suggest you pick up some 3x5 index cards (sorry, cannot locate a link, but a 300 count of ruled ones I got at Wally World for a mere $1.44) and a box to keep them in (also a WalMart purchase, for $1.88). This trick comes from the days before products like The Deck of Many's many products, there just was no company two decades ago offering anything like their monster, spell, or weapon decks. And I am not saying that, if you find them affordable, you should not use their products, but for many a player who is trying to game on a budget or as inexpensively as possible, a stack of 3x5 index cards and a box to hold them in (for less than $3.50) is the way to go. Even if you do purchase any of The Deck of Many's products, or any of their competitor's products for that matter, there are many things you can (and should) do with index cards. The new edition of D&D, 5e, is far simpler than previous editions, but there are still many powers and abilities each character earns as they play the game. Let us take probably the simplest class, the one almost every player tries at the beginning, the fighter. Level one they have a Fighting Style and the Second Wind ability. Level two, they get Action Surge. Level three they choose a Martial Archetype, which gives them an ability at 3rd, 7th, 10th, 15th, and 18th levels, which could simply be an ability at the named levels or spells and an ability or different maneuvers, three to start with, plus the aforementioned abilities. They get an Extra Attack at 5th, 11th, and 20th. And finally, they get the Indomitable ability at 9th level, which improves at 13th and again at 17th. That is a lot of things to keep track of, and while writing them all down on the character sheet (front and back, let us be honest) is one thing, but if you write each ability, each maneuver, each spell down on a card of its own, by hand, not only will the muscle memory help you remember each of those things. Plus you have the reference for each of those to hand and you do not have to go digging in the Player's Handbook each time you want to do something. Not only do index cards allow you quick reference, but having the physical cards allows you to keep track of your abilities and whatnot. This ability refreshes after a short rest - after you use it, flip it over and, since you have written "Refreshes after short or long rest" on the back, you know that after the party has a short rest, you flip it back over to the front and you can use it again, because that reminder is right there. For the game masters out there, and I am as guilty of not doing this (before now) as anyone else, use your 3x5 cards to track your NPCs, your side quest rumors, your treasure hoards (if you prepare those for your big bads beforehand), your big bads, your scratch built monsters, and you can even find 3x5 cards with grid lines on them to do pieces of maps or even geomorphs. I think Jim Murphy has some of the best ideas for index cards and their use by game masters, you should watch it here. I may even get a fancy wooden box for my index cards if I do them up correctly.

My last suggestion for players and game masters alike are Post-It Flags (found at WalMart for $2.88). Everyone should have at least the basic rulebook for whatever game they are playing - the PHB for D&D, the core rulebook for Cyberpunk 2020 - and a good way to reference your books is to use these little plastic flags to mark sections in the book. Here is my own PHB, all flagged up.

This has been marked for what I, as the DM, need for my game, so this may not be the markings you need for your game. Maybe you are a player that is playing a dwarven cleric, so you would mark the dwarf race entry, the cleric class entry, the equipment entry, and then each of your often used spells. You may be a fighter or some other character who uses the movement rules a lot and so you mark those sections specifically. You can mark your books however you want to. And yes, I know I spent the last section talking about using 3x5 index cards instead of referencing the books, but it never hurts to have the source material to hand. Especially if you are a DM, you will need these little beauties, all of the sections and tables in odd places in the Dungeon Master's Guide, all the different sources and bits of information from the published adventure you are either running or stealing from, and all the bits from Xanathar's Guide you are allowing your players to use (but not the ones they dare not touch, or face your wrath).

There you go, for roughly $10 ($15 if you go fancy on some of the items) you can improve your game. Adopt some of them, or none of them, but thinking about how you can improve your game from either side of the screen is always a good thing. Remember, if you and everyone else is having fun, then you are doing something right.

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.