eddyfate

After our Scion game wrapped up last night (write-up pending), the idea of running Nextwave: Rookies of H.A.T.E. came up again. I'm still kicking around ideas, but the one thing I need is data. And I figure I have a lot of comic book fans that read my LiveJournal, so I thought I would ask here. What I'm looking for are:

* Supervillains primarily. Heroes are good, too, as ideas to throw my players and to use as cameos, but mainly I need villain fodder.

* Characters that never had a series (or appeared in a series) for more than twelve issues.

* Characters that should probably never have a series.

Inspirations include not only Nextwave, but also The Great Lakes Avengers, Deadpool, The Tick and Brave and the Bold.

If I could get links to webpage references (such as to the Marvel Comics Database), I'd appreciate it.

Something that David and I came up with on the way home. Nextwave, the Next Wave: H.A.T.E. tries to create a new anti-terrorist group to beat up people and make America a safer place. The current idea is a group of reject heroes who have to deal with a bunch of retired supervillains and prove that they're threats to justify H.A.T.E.'s bailout application.

Since Nextwave is a modern "remix" of 80s characters and ideas, I'd probably use the original TSR Marvel Super Heroes system (or maybe the Four Color System, since it's also a remix of an 80s superhero game).

Robot City is a world almost completely covered by one metropolis, run by a caste system of robotic tribes. The society is a bit like late-Communist Russia, with a little bit of the Hindu caste system. One tribe of outcasts, a collection of robots found to be unsuitable or too broken to function in their caste, start to organize a revolt about the powers that be. (I had much more extensive notes, because this race was actually used in an email game I played in with xiombarg, but I have no idea where it disappeared off to.)

There's actually a lot of vectors to come at this game at, but it would likely be a short-run or one-shot game, since the idea of playing in an all-robot society would probably not sustain itself too long for regular play. I would probably pick a light-weight system for this, such as FUDGE or Savage Worlds, something that's easy to hack at and tweak.

This is one I've had for years, but it never seems to work out for me. It's more gimmick than game, but I think the two are closely entwined.

The game starts with the characters all waking up in a room with total amnesia. There aren't any character sheets to start -- just a letter assigned to each player's character, which is also on a plastic bracelet on their wrist. As the characters start to uncover the details of their surroundings, they learn about themselves and try to understand who they are and why they're there, and from that they build up their character sheets. So, for example, if a player decides that his character is strong, that gets put on his sheet, and he remembers something that explains why he's strong (perhaps a former professional athlete). Once the characters manage to escape (and, consequently, have their memories), they try to put together why they were captured, who captured them and how they can get their lives back.

I've kicked this around as a one-shot LARP as well, and the idea seems to have a strong vibe to it, but every time I consider it I realize I pretty much have to write a whole new system for it. Currently I'm wondering if Primetime Adventures might work, but integrating the pitch session into the pilot episode -- I haven't thought all of that through yet, though.

It's been a couple of years, but every once in a while I post RPG campaign ideas under the tag of "game i want to run." These are games that are a little different from the normal RPG game, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to running them. They came up in one of Ethan's recent posts to the WW LJ, so I thought I would repost them here, before adding stuff I've jotted down in the meantime.

Action Force 1948: G.I. Joe in a post-WWII world.

League of Heroes: League of Extraordinary Gentlemen using pulp characters from the 20s and 30s.

Marvel Noir: A superhero game set in the Marvel universe, but as it would have looked had it been in film noir post-WWII New York. Also the current holder of the title "Campaign I'm Most Likely To Run, Based on Death Threats I've Received."

Transformers 2.0 (and follow-up thoughts): A Transformers game with a completely different mythology. Actually, the newest Transformers Animated is pretty close to what I had in mind for this game.

... dark mirror ...: A Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. game mixed with Call of Cthulhu and Delta Green.

World of Darkness: Vice City: A classic World of Darkness chronicle detailing the lives of a Sabbat pack or Anarch gang in the 1980s, using the fictional Vice City from the Grand Theft Auto franchise.

War of Houses: Shakespearean tragedy set in a mecha space opera with an ancient Roman vibe.

For those new to my journal, I run an extremely irregular feature called "Game I Want To Run," which are RPG campaign ideas that I will likely never get around to running for whatever reason.

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The year is 1948. World War II is over. However, a group of radical fascists have banded together in secret to attempt to undo the victory of the Allies. James McCullen Destro, Baroness Anastasia DeCobray, and a masked man known only as the Commander have secretly acquired Nazi, Italian and Japanese technology in an attempt to create their own terrorist force independant of national boundries. Rather than reveal to the world that the defeat of fascism in Europe was not complete, the League of Nations create a secret military force called "Action Force." Commanded by General Lawrence J. Flagg and his First Sergeant Conrad "Duke" Hauser, Action Force attempts to defeat the dangerous Cobra Command.

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Yes, it's noir G.I. Joe, with a dash of the British Action Force for flavor. Depending on the mood I wanted to go for, I could use anything from Top Secret/SI with the Agent 13 sourcebook to Two Fisted Tales to Savage Worlds to Spycraft. (Cartoon Action Hour would appear to be a logical choice, but I think it would be too campy for this setup, and CAH doesn't quite do "just humans" as well as I'd like.)

After watching the second half of the utterly cheesy movie The Phantom and having watched The Shadow about a month prior, garchangel and I talked about doing a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-style game that would use pulp heroes from the 1930s. Original pulp characters such as The Shadow, The Phantom, and Doc Savage could be teamed with "modern pulp" characters like The Sandman and The Rocketeer, or even with less "superheroic" characters from that time-period such as The Saint.

garchangel recommended Cartoon Action Hour (which I would be inclined to use if I ever decided to run this), but Adventure! and Two-Fisted Tales would also work quite well.

Note: For those who aren't familiar with this irregular feature, these are RPG game ideas that I think would be really cool to run, but likely will never get the time to actually do. A list of past GILtR lives here.

Marvel Noir

In the vein of recent comic lines that "reimagine" entire comicbook universes in a historial reference (such as in the Victorian era or the 1600s), Marvel Noir is the Marvel Universe set in a film noir post-WWII New York. Some characters could be used pretty much as-is in Marvel Noir - Frank Castle's family was still murdered in a mob hit, and Matt Murdock is still trying to bring down the negarious Kingpin both in the courtroom and as the masked hero The Daredevil. Other characters would have to only be tweaked a little to become darker - Captain Steve Rogers is a nearly forgotten war hero addicted to the experimental Super-Soldier syrum, while Dr. Stephen Strange meddles in dark arcane powers in a hopeless attempt to keep demons from taking over the world, and Nick Fury starts to uncover a conspiracy to keep select Nazi war criminals alive and safe within New York. This isn't pulp or a four-color comic - this is more in the vein of The Shadow or Sandman Mystery Theater.

The most obvious system I would use is Mutants and Masterminds in conjunction with the Noir sourcebook. However, there's a certain appeal to a slightly powered-down Marvel Super Heroes system (the one put out by TSR in the late 80s), but any superhero system that offers a good use of street-level gaming would be fine. Also, I would certainly have a copy of Mean Streets at my side for reference material.

Edit - Ideadump: Seems a lot of people like this idea, so I'm going to dump some of the hero ideas here for easy reference.

Captain America - Steve Rogers is a former Army captain returned from World War II. He now lives in New York, and is starting to hit the skids due to his addiction to an experimental Super-Soldier serum.

The Punisher - Frank Castle is an ex-NYPD officer that had his family killed in a mob hit in retaliation for shooting a Don's son. Castle is now a vigilante out for revenge.

The Daredevil - Matt Murdoch is an assistant to the DA's office, and is looking to put the mob boss known as the Kingpin in jail. Unfortunately, the corruption in the system blocks his attempts, and he's left no choice but to take matters into his own hands.

Dr. Strange - Stephen Strange is an occult researcher who uncovers an attempt by demons to invade this dimension. His only hope is to strike a deal with another demon to give him the power to stop them...

Jim "Wolverine" Howlett - A private detective originally from Canada, Howlett is known for two things - being as tough as boot leather, and following a case to the ends of the earth. He's the best there is at what he does.

Cyclops - A nickname given to him by Jim Howlett, Sgt. Scott Summers is an NYPD cop that tries to do the right thing and play by the rules. He lost an eye in an attempt to apprehend Frank Castle. Summers and Howlett can't stand each other's methods, but they have worked together on cases more than once.

The Man of Iron - Tony Stark is a millionaire battling his inner demons (usually with the help of his good friend Jim Beam). He often drives in his giant metal car full of technological wonders, trying to clean up the streets as the Man of Iron, hoping that it will help him sleep easier at night.

The Hulk - Bruce Banner was a scientist on the Manhattan Project when something went wrong. Now he turns into a rampaging beast the newspapers call The Hulk. (NPC only.)

The Avengers - To protect America from the "Red Scare", the Avengers were formed - the best and the brightest of America's superheroes. In order to preserve the identities of the Avengers, however, they often work in secret, and have full autonomy to do whatever it takes to unearth Communist supervillains.

The Avengers (alternate) - Formed by Capt. Rogers and Tony Stark, the Avengers are a group that works together to keep American secure by any means possible. Inspired by a short story by naamaire. (Not necessarily incompatable with the previous idea.)

So, combined with a recent acquisition of mine (a Transformers RPG written by a Transfan and mailed to me with a cool box and GM screen) and a statement from greebotrill that she would try a Transformers RPG again got me thinking about Transformers 2.0, which I would like to run as a grittier, darker, and generally less campy/cartoony take on the Transformers universe. It's an idle debate, nothing more, but it also caused me to think about all of the different (and better) system options I have available to me (in no particular order): ( Cut for system babbling )

...dark mirror...
Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0./Night's Edge/Delta Green crossover

I found my notes for this, a campaign that I almost ran in 2001 but ended up scrapping (mainly due to the insane patchwork of systems I created to try to pull it off). Basically, a former "black book" government agency has gone rogue, what with the US government collapsing, and has started working with professional mercenaries (so-called "Edgerunners") towards their original secret goals of dealing with the supernatural and aliens, while working against another former government agency that has been acquired by Militech. Gritty futuristic military conspiracy under a layer of cyberpunk flash and style.

When I first tried to run this, I used the original Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. system. I had an old article on converting Call of Cthulhu to the CP2020 system, which I used to port Delta Green over. Then I tossed in the old Night's Edge sourcebooks that added supernatural creatures and powers to CP2020. The result, while technically workable, was really a complete mess, and the game never got off the ground as a result. If I were to do it all over again, I would probably use the CP2020 books with Delta Green as inspiration, and port the entire thing over to one cohesive system. Assuming I didn't lose my mind and try to develop a whole new system to use, the top four contenders (in no particular order) would be:

Call of Cthulhu D20 - With the upcoming revised Delta Green sourcebook for CoC D20, I could probably use something like Digital Burn to cover the cyberpunk elements, and CoC D20 is sufficiently action-adventure oriented. Plus, most people have played some sort of D20 variation in my potential gaming pool.

GURPS - I have GURPS Cyberpunk, GURPS Cthulhupunk, GURPS Horror, and GURPS Illuminati. If I picked up Special Ops and maybe Ultra-Tech, I should have everything I would need for the series. The only real drawback is that I'm not that familiar with GURPS, but at least the system components would play well with each other (probably more so than trying to mix D20 suppliments).

FUDGE - The next option is to go minimalist and just port the whole thing over to FUDGE, making design decisions as I needed to. While this would offer the maximum flexability, my inexperience with FUDGE means that I would end up tweaking the game system as we played, which is not the best solution for the players ("Wait, we could do that before, why not now?").

Savage Worlds - I've been looking for a reason to try this out, and the Savage Worlds system seems to be a good, solid, lightweight system. However, it might be a little TOO lightweight, but if I wanted to make the game more miniatures-oriented, this would be the only way to go.

I haven't done one of these in a while, but with some other requests in of games people would like me to run (Mutants and Masterminds, Deadlands, and Midway City), I'm probably not going to get to this. But damn it's cool.

World of Darkness: Vice City
Based in the fictional city of Vice City (setting for the computer game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City), this World of Darkness chronicle is set in the mid-1980s. Vice City is a fictional version of Miami overrun with the underworld manipulations of the Mafia, the Columbians, and a number of aspiring freelancers all wanting a piece of the action. The game could be based around an Anarch gang or a Sabbat pack trying to get money and supplies for their war against the Camarilla (perhaps based in GTA's other fictional city, Liberty City). Perhaps a city-based Garou pack of Glass Walkers, Bone Gnawers, and Ronin, with maybe a corrupt Shadow Lord or Silver Fang, hoping to clean up the city of its Wyrm-taint... or perhaps falling prey to it. Hell, even a down-and-out Mage cabal or Changeling circle trying to dig their way out of the muck could be based in Vice City. Demon or Hutner would also work, but you'd have to move the timeline up to the modern day.

Recommended books: Any WoD core game. Destiny's Price and WoD: Mafia are almost musts. Also, the free RPG Steal has a lot of good ideas for this style of campaign.

Here's another Game I'd Like To Run.

Transformers 2.0 is a complete revision of the Transformers universe. Taking the best parts of the original cartoon and comic, the Generation 2 comic, and even shows like Beast Wars, Beast Machines, Robots in Disguise, and Armada, this would be a complete "reboot" of the series. The original continuity would be gone, and the characters would start off as an exploratory expedition of Autobots that crash lands on Earth. Optimus Prime would still be on Cybertron, but available for communication via a Space Beacon and Teletran One, but the only reinforcements the Autobots can expect to have on Earth is themselves. This is intended to not only cut through the tangled mess that is Transformers continuity, but also make it more appropriate to an RPG campaign by "writing out" the big guns like Optimus Prime and Megatron.

The system I would use would obviously be Cartoon Action Hour with the upcoming Metal Wars suppliment, although RoboMACS (a PDF game for sale on RPG.now) could also be used successfully.

Okay, this is driving me crazy.

Some time ago I mentioned that I had a lot of ideas for RPG campaigns that I would never get around to running. They keep pounding away at my brain, so I decided that I'm going to just start posting the ideas that I have and will probably not do a whole lot with.

The first is War of Houses, which is part Dune, part Shakespeare, part Mechwarrior, and part Robotech. In a distant future, the Earth has expanded into a huge galactic empire, and the various worlds are all ruled and controlled by vast noble houses. These houses are constantly on the verge of civil war, as intersteller politics and arranged marriages dictate from week to week what allegiance a certain world holds. The passion and fury of select nobles can shake the galaxy apart, and frequently does in this galactic soap opera.

War of Houses can be run with Big Eyes, Small Mouth, BESM d20 with the d20 Mecha book, the d20 mini-game Mecha Crusade in Polyhedron 154 (which requires d20 Modern), Mekton Z, the upcoming 1PG from Deep7 called Exosuit A-OK, or maybe even Cartoon Action Hour. I might write up a more "cartoony" version of this idea for After These Messages..., but the original idea as presented is intended to be high melodrama with lots of giant robot military action.