Plots are us!

One of you asked for it! (Thanks HollyKing!) This is Throw Away Plot #3!

Previously I threw away a plot for Star Wars and for Star Trek.

This time around, I want to throw away a plot with a Super Hero theme. This summer has been all about the Comic Book Movie. We have Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk and Batman movies dancing around our heads. In the past few years we have seen the rise of the Comic Book Movie with Spider Man, X Men, Fantastic Four and others ka-blaming through our local cineplexes. With teases at the end of some of these movies suggesting sequels and trailers for The Watchmen in the theaters - this trend will not end any time soon.

I have a spectacularly bad history with running Super Power games. I played in a great game while I lived in STL - but I should have taken a clue. While everyone else was running around in skin-tight suits, whomping people with mutant super-powers, my character had a Mac 10, a computer in his skull and shark cartilage armor. "Jakker" was more suited to a game of Shadowrun than a Supers game.

I played in a second supers game with the same GM. The game had a B-Movie feel to it - I think the GM had grabbed a copy of GURPS Supers and GURPS Atomic Horror and ran with it! The game was short lived but brilliant!

So, there I am, thinking, huh! I could run a Supers game!

I've never read comic books - I always thought they were over priced wastes of money. I would buy the omnibuses now and then - at $12 to $20 bucks, even in black and white - they were great ways to get some comic book into my life. But, really, I don't have a stack of omnibuses, just a few.

It boils down to the fact that I really don't get comic books. When I think super powers, for some reason my mind runs toward science fiction: powers would have some plausible explanation. In truth, comic books are pure fantasy. They are ancient myths with a modern spin. Superman would have been a god in another era. Spiderman is an animal avatar if there ever was one, same with Wolverine. Bruce Banner is a man possessed by a demon! The comic books have even pulled directly from myth, Thor and Hercules are still running around in pulp pages.

Yet, I have repeatedly managed to miss the point. I've run at least three Super Powered games - all failed. Proof that watching a few movies does not a good Supers GM make. The last was the most successful. It more resembled a Stephen King novel than something by Lee & Kirby and it lasted less than six months.

However, a while back I came up with an idea that I thought would be fun. It's almost Super Powers.

The story goes like this: NASA's SOHO probe detects a solar flare. The flare is pretty bad - so bad it burns out portions of the probe. The flare hits Earth and does lots of damage to the telecommunications system.

In the end, nothing is unrecoverable - the result is a day of interrupted communications but something that could have been MUCH worse. Life goes on and people have some great stories.

The NASA researches begin seeing some anomalies. First, the strength of the flare burned out the SOHO probe, why were the communication satellites not more damaged? Further, light travels from the Sun to Earth in about 8 minutes. Yet, the flare hit Earth in under four. The leading edge of the flare touched Earth before the much closer probe's information reached Earth. The particles in the flare were traveling much faster than the speed of light!

The NASA information is largely ignored as vital info from NASA often is (but I'm not bitter!)

A few days after the flare, some strange things begin happening. Odd, unexplained accidents. Persons vanishing, appearing elsewhere, not knowing how they got there. A series of cat burglaries where nothing of real value goes missing.

Finally, a reporter pulls the threads together. His story begins with a string of beads that were stolen from the Heathrow airport. They were on display in the concourse. While digging an underground elevator shaft, a "kitchen midden" was discovered; essentially an ancient garbage dump. Archaeologists were called out to preserve what they could - they found some interesting pottery shards, bones indicating the local cuisine at the time and some other broken artifacts, including a broken string of glass beads. One of the beads was green glass and a bird had been cut into it. The burglar stole just the beads, worth no more than a few hundred pounds to a collector. A gold ring displayed next to the beads was left behind.

A 12 car accident in Chicago resulted in three deaths and dozens of injuries. However, one young lady walked away untouched. The reporter interviewed her and noticed a bead she wore on a silk cord, she found the brown, unglazed bead in an antique shop. The bead had been carved into the shape of a turtle. When the bead was carbon-dated, it was more than 3000 years old. The reporter goes on and on, detailing several incidents surrounding these beads.

In game terms, each bead gives some gift to the wearer; a power or some advantage. The beads can be any shape or size, made of any substance. Beads have been dated as far back as 10k years, but none newer that 2000 years. The beads often appear as a simple bead with a engraved design, some are cast into very complex and intricate designs, others are just a wooden bead with a painted on animal or pictograph.

Once the reporter comes forward, the race is on! It's about this point that I would bring in the players. Each player has a bead. The bead should be interesting but not super powered. Say, "underwater breathing", not "immune to bullets". Almost immediately, I imagine that the players would discover that they can easily trade the beads and the power follows the bead. They could also discover that the beads work together, so if a player had a bead that made him grow larger, and he put on a bead from his teammate that gave him fur and claws, he'd look like a werewolf! If he put on another bead, he could shoot lightning from his claws, etc.

Once this is revealed, the players are going to want more beads. So is everyone else on the planet! They will want to talk to archaeologists, collectors and antique shops to find more beads. Imagine buying super-powers, not to mention super fakes, on eBay!

We can then begin connecting all kinds of fun, historic, pseudo science and conspiracy. From crop circles to ley lines to Stone Henge to the Nasca lines to Atlantis. Where did the beads come from? Who made them? Why did they make them? Why did they reactivate? Will they be more powerful at a place of power, say an Aztec temple or Easter Island? Are they more powerful on a clear night with the whole Milky Way showering them with star dust?

Of course there are some, like our cat burglar, who got a jump on everyone else. "Scorpio", as she likes to be called, has the Heathrow Beads, as well as others she has stolen. She begins going after those that own beads, either buying, intimidating or killing them to get to her goal. Soon, she has a rather impressive necklace, not to mention an impressive collection of powers. She will be quite a challenge for the players.

I thought it might be fun to keep the astrological and astronomical associations going, introducing other villains with zodiological names like Pisces and Cancer. Even Aries and Mars could walk the Earth, and, for fun, Betelgeuse.

The great thing about beating a foe in this game: his powers now go to the group. The group increases in beads and thus power with each success. The group can also trade amongst themselves, changing and improving their powers as they go. I figured that eventually, certain beads would show up that enhance other beads or even protect them. Beads with just about any power imaginable could appear. Combining them could make whole new powers. One could even have "sets" of beads, each has a power, but as more of the set are brought together, other powers are unlocked. With the whole set, a large power is unlocked. There could also be beads that add no benefit to the user, but give benefits to the party, etc.

How do you control the power level of this game? A guy with a vest of beads will be darn near invincible and maybe without weakness. First, control the number of beads. There were only so many made, only so many can be around. Next, the beads are destroyable. Thus, in a fight, players might lose beads - but so might the bad guys! (This keeps guns and sharp-shooters in play!) In the end, I think a game like this could get very out of control unless the GM ran it with an iron hand.

Eventually, someone (player, NPC, villain) is going to try to make a new bead. They will likely destroy several to discover the technology, maybe dozens, even hundreds. Will they succeed? Will they create an even more powerful bead? Will their bead fail catastrophically? That's up to the GM and some rolls on "Craft: Bead".

The coolest part of this for me: props! I'm a GM that believes in props. In this game, each player could actually wear their beads! A bag of cheap wooden beads can be purchased at any big box craft store. A few minutes with these beads and a Sharpie or a paint pen and you would have some decent props. String them on some hemp or silk cord and BINGO! Cool props for your players!

I've thought several times of writing this up in detail and trying to get it published. I still reserve that right!