Typically, a Champions campaign is plotted like the old Golden and Silver Age comics; that is, each story stood on its own and rarely did much to disturb the status quo. Anything significant that did alter things in the long term was itself intended to stand on its own; the repercussions of the event were felt afterward, but there was generally no specific plan made to weave it into a greater story.
The texture of long-range storytelling (on television as well as in comics) has changed quite a bit since those days. Now events are planned well in advance, foreshadowed and even predicted by preceding stories, and woven into the larger epic, which itself may be either strictly planned (like Babylon 5 or open-ended (like a soap opera). There's a lot to be said for planning the events of your Champions campaign well in advance as well. This can take many forms, and be done on many scales.
For example, you may start Catastrophe (The Mutant File) as a team of terrorists, just as they're written, but want to change them into a team of specialists working for the United States government (perhaps a modern extension of the Expendables program described in Golden Age Champions). You could start this thread with a scenario where Quake sacrifices full success of a strike to save the lives of some children; this not only foreshadows what's to come, but shows the government that the man does have a shred of decency in him, and possibly in at least some of the other members as well (it's hard to imagine for Riot). The next time Catastrophe shows up, the PCs capture them all, except maybe Riot (who would probably abandon the group, though he might try unsuccessfully to stage a breakout). Behind the scenes, Catastrophe is given a proposal where they would keep their freedom (to an extent; they stay out of "Hot Sleep" in Stronghold) and gain access to government resources to protect them from Genocide and other enemies if they provide PRIMUS with information about those enemies and serve the government as a special strike force this time striking against terrorism. Soon thereafter, the PCs raid a Genocide base only to find that it's already been demolished by Catastrophe; this was their test mission. After this, the GM is free to do what he wants with the newly-officialized Catastrophe (possibly renamed the New Expendables).
This example is unlikely and perhaps overly simplified, but it gives a general idea of how a single plot thread can be developed over time.
This kind of thing requires a little more structured planning than a campaign where every adventure simply stands on its own, or where only one or two plot threads are going on. Not only does each long-term story have to be planned out, but the individual threads need to be woven together into the fabric of the campaign.
How is this done? First, break down each story into its component adventures, like the Catastrophe storyline was in the first example above. They don't need to all have the same number of chapters; in fact, some variety in this regard is probably preferable. Then take the first episodes of the various stories, and arrange them in some order that seems reasonable to your mind. (In particular, the thread you choose to introduce first should either clearly demonstrate the fact that you're going to be shaking up the status quo, or cleverly hide it.)
Once you've planned the introduction of the first episodes of all the stories, continue with them all, varying the order just enough to keep your players from accurately predicting what they're going to have to deal with next. For added variety, throw in a few short scenarios that don't relate to any of the stories at all (perhaps they foreshadow something you're going to be doing in the future). Then, as these stories start to wind down, you can introduce more long-range stories and weave them into the fabric of the campaign -- or, you might even consider having a small epic adventure to which some or all of the long-range stories lead to act as a climax.
Let's take the given examples. We've already broken apart the Catastrophe plot thread, so we move on next to the Foxbat Cult. In the first encounter, Foxbat "helps" the PCs deal with Reverend M, and comes up with the idea of forming his own religion. The next time the PCs come across him, he's preaching on the street corner; despite the fact that it's completely unfocused and poorly thought out, he actually starts gaining converts; if the PCs don't try to bring him in as a wanted criminal nutcase, one of his enemies (say, VIPER) attacks. The third chapter finds the PCs tracking laundered money to a mysterious figure in the First Holy Church of Foxbat (which has its own building by now, small but large enough to set up a drive-through absolution service). In the fourth and final installment, some criminal group tries to rob Foxbat's cult blind, and he decides that it's really more trouble than it's worth.
The next thread to be considered is the thread where VIPER uses a DNPC for their genetic experiments. The first thread would probably be a more-or-less straightforward VIPER encounter, where agents are robbing the place that the DNPC works (or someplace nearby, if the DNPC is a school-age student or works at McDonald's or some such place); at some point during the battle (which is a ruse), the DNPC is grabbed (preferably with the excuse of using her as a hostage shield, but as an outright kidnapping if necessary). Then some time passes, and the DNPC suddenly appears practically out of nowhere in the middle of an apparently unrelated scenario, and begins to exhibit mysterious psychometric powers. The DNPC becomes an available resource for the PCs to use for several adventures, but finds herself a target (in the third chapter of the set) of both Genocide and IMAGE. Finally, an accident causes the powers to fizzle out.
For the Rivalry thread, let's assume that the NPC villain and the PC are both martial artists who trained together and have a long-standing disaffinity for each other. This thread starts out where the villain calls out the PC to face single combat, but when the PC arrives (with his friends nearby, most likely) he's attacked by the Destruction Company. The PC can then try to find his enemy's location, but hits a dead end until it's time for the second encounter, when he hears of the NPC running a protection racket in an inner-city neighborhood; when the PC goes to investigate, the NPC ambushes the PC, with friends of his own nearby (not the Destruction Company, but other martial artist villains and mercenaries) to keep the other PCs at bay and carry the main villain away in the event he loses the fight -- which, this time, is likely. He then lies low for a while, but information about his location leaks to the PC for the third encounter, and he's finally captured at that time.
Finally, there's the PRIMUS corruption thread. Let's assume that the corruption takes the form of a vigilante mentality among certain researchers at the local laboratory; they're performing clandestine, unauthorized experiments to clone one of their own number, give that individual super-powers far beyond the PCs' level, and make him into a super-vigilante who knows no world other than the one his keepers provide. Early on, the PCs would stop a shipment of illegal goods, among which would be several samples of superhuman genetic material with no specified recipient -- and the drivers aren't telling. Next, PRIMUS asks the PCs to do a little chore for them on the quiet, and the PCs get to experience firsthand the "do whatever is necessary" mentality of certain factions in the Intelligence Department (not necessarily the Silver Avenger or the Iron Guard, remember!). In the third installment, the PCs are present when an influential Representative of Congress, a member of the National Security Subcommittee and a vocal opponent of human cloning, is assassinated; soon afterward, the President softens his condemnation of the practice of human cloning, and while the official investigation points to a lone nut, the PCs come across indications of a government-based conspiracy (in fact, the PRIMUS conspirators had him killed). Then, for the fourth chapter, the local Silver Avenger personally visits the PCs to handle a delicate matter of national security, and hints to them that he doesn't completely trust anyone at the base any more. The fifth installment is a head-on fight with Genocide, and most of the more familiar Iron Guardsmen have been replaced with ones whose mentality is clearly militaristic. Finally, in the sixth and final chapter, the PCs begin to investigate repeated power brownouts in the area, trace it to the PRIMUS base, and team up with the Silver Avenger to stop the first cloning. They may succeed, or they may find themselves having to fight a fanatic with the combined powers of every mutant and mutate in the Champions Universe.
Now let's thread these together. This is only one possibility:
Try treating your campaign, at least for planning purposes, as though it were an action-adventure television series. Each "season" (which I call a "Phase" since it's not specifically limited to a fixed period of time like a TV season is), you want to achieve something specific. Maybe you'll have cast changes, or you have some larger story that you want to advance during that Phase, or perhaps the larger story is the common thread of the Phase.
A Phase can also be defined by a theme of adventures; in fact, this is arguably the easiest way to develop a campaign Phase. Naturally, the PCs' early adventures should be used to introduce their environment, their associates, and (especially) their regular enemies. The next Phase, typically, is used to "flesh out" the PCs and their associated NPCs (including DNPCs) through adventures that address personal issues. But what next? A series of interdimensional scenarios? Some adventures with a mystical theme? A focus on governmental issues? Or perhaps a series in which one particular enemy of the PCs permeates throughout? Any of these would be a good idea, but there are so many possibilities within each idea that they're likely to become blurred together into a "generic" campaign if you try to pursue them all at once.
Thus, your campaign planning can take on a truly long-term approach. Categorize the long-term stories and stand-alone scenarios you want to run, and group them by those categories until you have at least as many stories in each category as you need to make a good mini-campaign. Then, just as you would with the stories and scenarios within these Phases, sort them out in an order that seems reasonable. You could even have some idea of a grand scheme that each Phase in the campaign leads the overall story along (not much unlike the TV series Babylon 5). Whether you do this or just let each Phase stand alone, however, you should have a plan for a dynamic campaign that will more easily keep your players interested for quite a long time.
As you've probably figured out by now, though, this level of planning can bring your plans along years ahead of where you are in actual play, especially if you're making early plans for a campaign that hasn't actually started yet. Don't worry too much about this -- but at the same time, don't put too much initial work into Phases that are still quite a ways off. After all, players can leave your campaign for a variety of reasons, and others can join; and your players may come up with things for the characters to do that will suggest storylines. To alleviate this, just list what general ideas you have for each Phase at first, and then assemble and order the stories and stand-alone scenarios when the preceding Phase is about halfway through (depending on how long each Phase actually is). Similarly, while the general events of each scenario should be determined as each Phase is planned, the close details (such as what kind of equipment each VIPER agent is carrying) should wait until a couple of months before the scenario is to be played.
As always, if you have any suggestions or other feedback, it would be most welcome. Just send me e-mail with the link at the bottom of this page.
This article is © 1997-2000 by Bob Greenwade. E-mail me if
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