Five Campaign Premises

Five Slightly Different Superhero Campaigns

Bored with a four-colour campaign? Start with one of these ideas, guaranteed to be...well, actually, there's no guarantee.

None of these are unique, but they are seen less often.

We know we're in the Matrix All the superheroics take place in a virtual reality: the Pod...which might as well be real. That's where people earn their money and their rep. The players have super-powers in the setting; not everyone does. But something happens, and players have to investigate both in the Pod and outside it (as sort of "secret identity" stuff).

I'll catch that crook, right after a word from this sponsor Why do people do anything? For money. And corporations pay superfolk to be their representatives. Maybe there's an opening because Captain Cuddle was found with an underage leather-clad sub and a whip in his hand; maybe it's just competition between two insurance companies. Or maybe for some reason nobody wants Nerdgasm as their representative, so Nerdgasm has to struggle on its own with other misfits.

We're trying to go wrong After five years of trying to be a group of heroes, the Wonder Four have decided that crime could pay. But if you've been beating up the bad guys for half a decade, you might have trouble convincing them that your change of heart is legit. And maybe it's not...

Sharper than a serpent's tooth You're all mutants sharing the (low-rent) apartment. It doesn't help that some of you are good and some are bad, but at the end of the month, you have to have the rent money...and can you really arrest your cousin? How will you explain that to Dad and to Aunt Jennifer?

Smalltown Trouble It's tough being a country kid with city powers, even in a tourist beach town. Thank goodness you have a couple of friends who want to be heroes...much more than you do. Between dealing with the Rudnoski brothers, gym class, and prom, there's also the fact that you think you recognize the guy who just moved into the McIlvray's rented cottage. That chin, that voice: he might be Dr. Deprivation, planning his next big crime.