I return you now to the year
1986 and my friend William C.'s 'AGE of CHAMPIONS' Champions
RPG campaign, now in its sixth and a half year.
A year and a half into the
second chapter, 'The Bronze Age', things have taken a most unusual, epic, and
challenging turn...
A new player had joined the
fray as the heroic, technological genius Christian Scaramangler, heir to the
Scaramangler Foundation and Scaramangler Industries. With his father having
been accidentally killed by aliens, Chrisitan Scaramangler has embraced the
world-wide distrust of extraterrestrials. And then some.
While simultaneously standing
side-by-side with the heroes of UNTIL's Project: UNITY, Scaramangler (and his
player) secretly used his money, influence, technology, and most of all his
devious brilliance to waylay the team's leader, Omni.
Omni is an alien you see and
one of the most beloved heroes in the USA, if not the world. Scaramangler's player spent a good
deal of time and effort trying to embaress, frame, beat-up*, and otherwise
hinder Omni at every turn.
The key element is that while
all the players involved were aware of what was going on, the characters in the
story were largely unaware of Scaramangler's participation in the plots to
sabotage Omni (as well as any other aliens - good or evil). Scaramangler's
player, my friend Eric, was incredibly good at covering his character's tracks.
The end result was an amazing
multi-layered story, featuring deep characterization and complex plots within
plots. As the game was primarily run in the lunchroom of our high school, many
people watched and listened to the narrative and eventually wanted in on the
action. A number of new heroes and villains appeared at this time.
While the game appeared to be
going great, there was real concern behind the scenes on the part of Will (the GM) and
Dave (Omni's player). How long could they all keep this up? Would character
animosity bleed over into player animosity? How would Omni and the other
heroes balance the scales as more new players came in wanting to play villains?
Most of all, how could they find a way to counter the Machiavellian cunning of
Eric/Scaramangler? What they needed was a
special kind of hero PC - a good guy as good at being good as Scaramangler was
at being bad.
One day, with no particular
fanfare before hand, the group assembled to play their next session and I
sauntered over to say hello to Dave and some of the other players. I then sat
off to the side and waited for an appropriate moment to make my character's entrance.
The scenario that day involved Scaramangler Industries unveiling the new Mark IV (I think) Minute Men robots - good guy
versions of the Sentinels from Marvel Comics that helped protect the
Scaramangler Foundation. Some were to be shipped to PRIMUS, some to UNTIL, and
a few were going overseas to Britain's MI-13 and Japan's Superhuman
Self-Defense Force.
The Scaramangler Industries
'Minute Men'
In the livery of:
(Left to right) the
Scaramangler Foundation, UNTIL, PRIMUS,
and The Japanese
Superhuman Self Defense Force
As the robots were loaded
on to ships and into warehouses by PRIMUS, UNTIL, and Scaramangler Industries
personnel, all under the watchful eye of several member of Project: UNITY (the
heroic PCs), I got up, walked over to the table, and stood with my arms folded
next to where my friend Dave sat. The GM, Will, described an object, no a caped
humanoid, descending slowly to hover some 30 feet in the air over the loading
dock.
Heroes, military, and
police prepared for a fight but Omni stayed them all with a subtle shaking of
his head and a calmly raised hand. He was told by the GM that Omni was familiar with
this being's species, an alien race known as the Pleiadesians.
The alien identified himself as StarGuard, leader of The Protectors of Pleiades, guardians of the
Pleiades Imperium.
"What is it that you
want here on Earth 'Imperial'?", Omni asked.
StarGuard informs Omni and those gathered, that he knows Omni is actually the heir to the throne of
the planet Mandaar. The Pleisadesians and Mandaarians have been rivals for
centuries. Now they are locked in a Cold War that could result in a devastating
conflict between the Imperium and the Mandaarian Empire (though I think they
called themselves a Republic). StarGuard insisted that Omni return to Mandaar
to retake the throne from the fascist government currently in charge.
Omni simply refused,
saying he was more a citizen of Earth than a ruler of Mandaar. He refused to
abandon the place he called home and the people he'd sworn to protect.
Finding honor in his
words, StarGuard would not force Omni to break his vow to Earth but nor could
he let the only chance of peace between their two peoples be harmed. StarGuard
vowed to remain on Earth to protect Omni, until such time as Omni agreed to
return to Mandaar.
Scaramangler was not
pleased. (Heheh) A new alien superhero had literally dropped into their midst and one with experience and power. Furthermore, he was being played by me, an
'X-Factor' to a group in which not everyone knew me well.
And so began...The Age of
Chaos!
AD
Barking Alien
Oh man, how awesome! This reminds me of some of my groups greatest campaigns. At one time our gaming group had at least 8 different Champions campaigns going at the same time. It got so bad that we had to all sit down and make a huge chart of all the games, and all of the players who were in each game, so that we could coordinate them all. I think we has around 16-20 players at that time, with most games being played every other week on either Weds nights or Saturday nights. It was quite a production.
ReplyDeleteThat's fantastic!
DeleteI wonder...is it Champions?
Yours is one of the more grandiose examples (8 Campaigns! A chart to keep track! Wow!), but not the first one of heard of when it comes to massive Superhero campaigns using Champions. As evidenced by the very meta-campaign, and sub-campaigns I am describing, it seems Champions lends itself to gaming on an ambitious scale.