Slowly thinking about running a superhero type game - and have been reading super hero e-books by the half dozen.
Some are good - the Just Cause series, the Super Powereds series, and the Wearing the Cape series.
One started off pretty good, then became so awful that I have blotted the title from memory. Seriously, I cannot even remember the series title. Pretty sure that the test audience had the same reaction - the author's afterword was used to justify what happened in the book. (My creative writing teacher told me that if you have to justify the book then you did it wrong. My teacher was right.)
So... thinking about using the Wearing the Capes setting, since there is an RPG in the works already - though I may use Mutants & Masterminds, second edition as the system. Mostly using the series because I really like the name 'Heroes Without Borders'.
Series Title: The Task Force
Setting: Boston and Environs
PC Organization: Boston Police Department, Superhuman Task Force (may come up with abetter name with a backronym later - I like the idea of STFU... but will call it the SHTF for now). PCs are 9 to 5 super heroes, more accurately - third shift superheroes - budget problems and incident reports. Punch in, do your job, punch out. Overtime is limited.
PCs that had a superhero career before joining the SHTF are allowed to wear their blazon on their right pocket - their badge goes on the left.
Body armor is provided and supposedly mandatory - even if the hero does not need it. (often overlooked in practice). Communications and recording equipment is mandatory. Violent incidents will be reviewed. Violent incidents ending in serious injuries and/or fatalities will result in a minimum of two weeks of suspension - with pay if cleared by a board of review.
While a branch of the Boston Police Department, the SHTF has statewide powers and duties. (Massachusetts once had three such units... but with budget and corruption issues they got folded into the Boston SHTF - which has budgets from the federal government, the state government, and the municipal government... can you say paperwork in quadruplicate? I knew you could.
)NPCs so far:
Captain Joseph Adams - head of the SHTF - a speedster with 25 years of service, mostly flying a desk these days. Wishes he was in the field. (In the movie he would be played by the late Leslie Nielsen.)
Sergeant Laverne Watkins - a real powerhouse, and it never comes into play; she's the desk sergeant. (And she likes flying a desk. Even though she is capable of taking on the entire squad all by her lonesome. In a movie she would be played by Queen Latifa.)
Lieutenant James (Jon-Tom) Thomas - the third shift command of the SHTF. Looks tired, with five o'clock shadow all the time. The commander that the PCs will answer to under most circumstances. (No actor chosen yet.)
Dr. Benjamin Darling - M.E. seconded to the SHTF. Necromancer, but with limits. (Asking the corpses questions is okay. Turning the corpses into zombies, not okay. Nice guy, kind of weird, and a bit of a nerd - reads comic books. In a fight he is soft and squishy. In the movie would be played by Steven Wright.)
Dr. Hector Ramsey - chief medical examiner. Was secretly once a gunslinging vigilante codenamed Paladin. Descended from the bounty hunter and medical examiner of the same name and codename. ('Have Gun, Will Travel' reads the card of a man....) Most people know none of his history - as he puts it 'I'm older and fatter these days'. (Played by Richard Boone of course. Purely because I loved the show Hec Ramsey - a kind of sequel to Have Gun, Will Travel. I actually liked it better than I did the original.) Still carries a gun, even on duty, and can still draw faster than pretty much anybody. Trust me, that will come into play.
Lt. Baxter Powers - Boston Fire Department arson investigation squad leader. Pyrokinetic and pyromantic powers. (Pyrokenisis is power over fire, pyromantic abilities are being able to ask the fire questions and expect answers. But the fire has to be continuous for the questions to be asked - a fire's memory only goes back to when it became a flame. So an arson that uses timed devices will not be remembered by the fire. Lt. Powers is played by Benedict Cumberbatch.)
Lucifer - Prince of Darkness, Ruler of Hell. Retired. Living in a brownstone in Boston that he owns, working as a PI (because he wants to 'live the cliche'). Does not want to get back into the game. Heaven and Hell can both go hang, he is busy here. (Played by Morgan Freeman.) May go away if I cannot make his plot work. It should be questionable whether he really is the Devil, or just a superhuman with related delusions. He is not going to be running around perpetrating evil, but has enough power to level the city of Boston and surrounding towns. Severely limits his power use. First hint should be when he gets shot - not sure if I will borrow the coincidences from The Omen or just have the bullet flare, melt, and disappear before it reaches him. I think that I may name him C. S. L. Wormwood. He will certainly have a law degree.... His agency is Screwtape Investigations.
One out of Boston location will be Clam Harbour, Massachusetts - a town formerly named Innsmouth.... The PCs will find the old town sign in the basement of the town hall - the town was reincorporated in 1938 with the new name. They provided the US Navy with frogmen during WWII.
A compromise between the Deep Ones and the US Navy was reached following the incidents of The Shadow Over Innsmouth. The Navy never did get around to informing the US government - and the files were lost when the old Boston Naval Shipyard was closed down in the seventies. (Ironically, they were not lost deliberately - just badly stored. Neither side thought that they were doing anything wrong.)
There will also be problems in the old village of Dunwich - strangely enough the walls between worlds are weaker there.... Unlike Innsmouth, there is no compromise there.
Thoughts?
The Auld Grump, it's been percolating for a few months....
*EDIT* Damn, that was a long post....
Fun, but terrible animation... or maybe that is just Hulu.... (More likely both... there is a reason that I avoid most anime. Sometimes better plots, often better characters, almost always poor animation.)
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