Quote from: Consonant DudeAlso, I forgot to mention but we agreed that if we go through this, all the "origin" stories will be played as one-on-one sessions, unless two players want their characters to have a tied origin.

Huh.  If you're aiming for (eventually) a "team" sort of feel then you may want your first all-together session to be dedicated to consciously making a "team origin."  If only because having that looming will help people be thinking about portraying a character who (by personality and outlook) could have an interesting place in a team origin (and thereby an interesting place in a team).

Though the standards are not that high.  I've been reading early Avengers comics, and much as I love them "A cloaked figure in a bar offers you money to fight" seems sophisticated and nuanced by comparison with how they got together

You can also create an adventure, like an origin adventure: Give them a common work site, a common event they're all at, or something else.

For example: The heroes are at a Science Convocation, where an award winning scientist is being given a prize. The catch is of course he believes he's prescient and has predicted the next stage of mankind's evolution--terrible beasts that will rip civilization apart, sociopathic predators (after researching serial killers.) So he's infected himself with a retroviral mutagen, and everyone he comes in contact with will be exposed to it.

In the middle of this meeting of course he gets attacked and killed by unseen forces (assassinated because he's not far off the mark in his sociology predictions about things, and the powers that be actually PLAN for it to happen so they can control the populace through fear.)


Or something more choice based: The heroes have a series of dreams that lead them to the same spot, where a mystic door opens revealing ancient treasures thought lost to mankind: The Sword Gram, the Scrolls of Archimedes, and so on and so forth. When the heroes come out of investigating this place they wake up, and their powers based on the artifacts chosen in the dream manifest.


In my current FTF campaign, I began with a superhero base, discovered by some partying teenagers on a site destined to be destroyed. They discovered the Trophy Room/Artifact room and interacting with objects there gave them powers: One was possessed by a Demonic entity from within Samurai armor, and only survived by claiming a weapon possessed by the spirit of an ancient martial arts sensei. Another discovered the Horn of Roland, which granted him mystical might, a suit of Carolingian mail and a helmet, and summoned a pegasus for him to ride. Another seeing the changes in his friend went nuts and injected himself with remnants from a genetics experiment gaining animal powers. While another later was introduced claimed the missing Doctor Velocity's experimental Cybernexus helm...which granted him control over technology.


I let them forge their heroes from choices they made in the "initial" adventure.

What an interesting GM problem to have I mean, you can go wild with this.

If it was me, here's what I would do. Check that. Here's what I'd ask my players to do.

Players : They have got to come up with a normal human background. Name, personality, occupation etc. The most important thing would be - What is a normal day like for this character?

Then depending on the system you are using, they would have to blindly roll for their power(s). Don't tell them what they got. Just look suprised

GM : Now, what you've got to do, is tailor an adventure using the parts of their background as a starting point. Then you've got to create a situation where their power(s) manifest - normaly a moment of great stress.

Like say, one of the players is trying to help a "jumper" of a building but while trying to talk the guy down, he's pulled off the building. Suddenly instead of plunging to their mutual deaths he (the pc) has somehow landed at the bottom, with the jumper holding on to him for dear life with eyes shut.

Also, it would be cool, if the two players know of each other - say an ad exec (pc 1) who walks past a construction site where (pc 2) works as a welder or something.

I think this would work out okay. I've done variations of this before.

Regards,
David R

Well, In my current Legion of Superheros campaign I chose the power for each character, and unless the power was one that they were born with (ie. they were an alien) the player didn't actually know what his power would be until after he made his character.

All of the powers were from the list of powers that actual members the Legion had, and the plan was that the PCs would replace those particular legionnaires in the roster; but eventually all of the players agreed that they'd actually rather just go ahead and PLAY that legionnaire, with the understand that they were free to interpret the character however they wished: so we didn't end up with a character with Jo Nah's powers, we ended up with Jo Nah, Ultraboy.

I'll note also that I originally deceived my players and made them think that they were rolling for their power on a random table.  I knew that if I handpicked them for them and they knew this, there might be some resentment over why one player got "Ultraboy" and another got "Invisible Kid" (I knew the players fairly well and felt I knew which character/power would be best suited to their style of play).  After a few sessions, when they all agreed that they had ended up with the right hero for them, I let them know the truth.

As for your situation , which is a bit different, I would echo the idea that you pick a group origin, ie. they all get powers the same way or at the same time, maybe with all their powers sharing a "group" theme (i.e. the Elementals or something like that).

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditAs for your situation , which is a bit different, I would echo the idea that you pick a group origin, ie. they all get powers the same way or at the same time, maybe with all their powers sharing a "group" theme (i.e. the Elementals or something like that).

Wow ... I hadn't even thought of the Elementals.  That'd be awesome ... a TPK in your origin story

For those not in the know, the Elementals are characters who were made superheroes because the four elements of the world reanimated their corpses in order to fight a global arcane threat.  In fact, almost every superbeing in that universe is undead to some extent or another.

Quote from: TonyLBWow ... I hadn't even thought of the Elementals.  That'd be awesome ... a TPK in your origin story

For those not in the know, the Elementals are characters who were made superheroes because the four elements of the world reanimated their corpses in order to fight a global arcane threat.  In fact, almost every superbeing in that universe is undead to some extent or another.

Not exactly. They were ressurrected but the process of ressurection infuses them with dark force, the energies gathered by Saker to make the Dark Spear. The Elementals were created to combat Saker because he was stealing power from Demons/Banished ones and upsetting the balance, creating a rift between God and the Alkemae. The Alkemae being the four elemental spirit forces: Aeir. Terra, Ignis and Aqua. Most of the others either are killed and suffused with darkforce: A storm of darkforce infected a bat, which bit a man who became Captain Cadaver (a vampire) and spread them like the plague.  Several of Saker's forces were created by him killing them in unique ways and letting the darkforce do its work, same goes for the zealot group created by the televengelist (The Rapture? Name escapes me at the moment).

However, NOT every superhuman has that origin: Some are ancient gods (Thor, Gog and Magog), some were elemental spirits (the Great Bear), some wielded magical items (Doctor Thunder, the Belt of Strength).


They were "alive" but a bit unwhole, over time that began to correct itself for the Elementals.  At least before Comico went nuts after Willingham walked away.

Quote from: TonyLBI've been reading early Avengers comics, and much as I love them "A cloaked figure in a bar offers you money to fight" seems sophisticated and nuanced by comparison with how they got together

Yeah, that's pretty much my problem with the Avengers. . .Justice League too for that matter. I do enjoy some JLA stories (mostly the ones where Grant Morrison's sucking Batman's dick), but they as well as Cap and crew always seemed to be a "team just to have a team." They tend to oscillate wildly between "All-star lineup of solo characters who by o means should have the freakin' time to do this" and "dumping ground for characters nobody else is using and who wouldn't merit their own book."

Which is to say (to rope this back around to the topic at hand), I'm strongly in favor of the "commmon origen leading hopefully to common purpose" approach over "randomly band together because these happen to be the characters the players created." The FF, the X-men, even the fuckin' New Warriors and the Outsiders (the "anti-Avengers" and "Anti-Justice League," respectively) have more purpose and commonality than the two flagship teams. And if you've got carte blanch to make up everything yourself, then why not make it unified, y'know?

Peace,
-Joel