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Super Team Showdown! (Silver Age of Champions)
The Justice Friends were America’s greatest heroes, but with friends like these, who needs enemies?
TYPE
SYSTEM
LEVELS
LANGUAGE
EXPERIENCE
AGE
$15.00
/ Session
Details
Once / Sunday - 7:30 PM UTC
Apr 19
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
4 / 6 Seats Filled
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Meet your party members
4/6
About the adventure
It’s Good, clean fun in the swinging Sixties! It’s play-tested, Comics Code Approved! It's a home-grown homage to DC's campy checkerboard era; the heyday of Lee, Kirby, and Ditko at Marvel; and certain campy cartoon adaptations of the aforementioned from the 70s. You may be misfits of nature, freaks of science, or even outcasts from humanity, but you still hold yourself to the Heroic Code. As evidence piles up that the Justice Friends, that popular team of handsome heavy-hitters, are breaking the rules that all superheroes operate under, you realize that it’s up to you to rein them in. This game runs on the fourth edition of Champions, the superhero identity of the HERO System, a detailed and tactical rule set that lets you build exactly the character and the powers you want from a common pool of points. (If you're thinking, "that sounds like Gurps.", you're not wrong. The two games have been trading ideas back and forth since their beginnings.). I run a streamlined version to reduce bookkeeping during play. Combats are played out on virtual hex grid maps to get the full effect of area effect powers, destructible and useable objects, and movement (voluntary and otherwise).
Game style
Puzzle / Mystery Focused
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Tactical / Crunchy
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
Less than a year on StartPlaying
2 games hosted
About me
I was born in Bangor, Maine a few months before Stephen King’s first novel came out. My mother was a teacher and encouraged my dreams of being a writer. I’ve been an avid comic book fan since 1979. The first rpg I ever owned or learned was the original Marvel Superheroes game, followed by Gurps and Toon. I didn’t have anyone to play them with, but I made lots of characters. In college, I joined a table gaming club, met many lifelong friends, and began playing lots of roleplaying games. The first rpg I played properly was Champions. I’ve been running games since 1994. After college, I wrote an article for Pyramid magazine that got accepted…shortly after Pyramid stopped publishing on paper. You can still find it outside the paywall if you go to the Steve Jackson Games website. I’ve also been published in the webzine Fudge Factor, several literary journals and a lovecraftian superhero story in the anthology _Cthulhu Unbound_ (volume one). Around 2019, I began to experiment with VTTs as an alternative to the hours of driving it took to get five or six friends in one place each week to game. ...Then Covid happened. I have recently been running a weekly Vampire the Dark Ages campaign that is now over 180 sessions long. I'm always looking for ways to further improve my games, whether through personal experiences, written sources, videos, or podcasts. I’m always coming up with new ideas and usually saving them up for an opportune time, like today.
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Players may make their own characters under the following conditions: a) they are standard superhero power level ie. 100 base points, plus up to but not exceeding 150 points from disadvantages, and no more than 50 points from any one category of disadvantage. b) They have a psychological limitation disadvantage called Code of Moral Authority (very common, either Strong or Total commitment) that makes them obey, usually, the strictures of the Comics Code. c) their skills, talents, and powers all make sense for their backstory and/or high concept, not just a top ten list of gamebreaking power builds. d) their disadvantages and limitations are elements you're comfortable having brought into gameplay, not just character point IOUs you're hoping I'll forget about. e) your character concept fits into a colorful non-gritty mid-20th century comicbook world (aliens, time-travellers, wizards -sure. Computer Hackers or Hard-bitten Veterans who ride around in a van full of guns, blowing up drug dealers? no. ) I've already made a whole team of characters you can choose from if you don't want to worry about building your own.
of the players who've expressed interest so far, one intends to play a dexterous durable Deadpool-like character; one prefers a straightforward fighter type; and the third is flexible but might be making a scientist type.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
make a free account on Discord and join my server (the Secret Justice Headquarters) make a free account on Roll20 . I'll send you the link to this particular virtual game table. Let me know as soon as possible if there's a particular character you want to play so I can review them for suitability and work them into the game world. (If you only have a general concept but no stats, I can build them for you, given enough time.)
What Steven (malpanda) brings to the table
I bring a great depth of comicbook knowledge, a sometimes subtle sense of humor, and many years of experience with these rules.. Expect bespoke tokens and character portraits, Interesting battle maps, Rule of Cool moments, surprising plot twists, and a richly detailed world.
Homebrew rules
I don't track Endurance except for Long Term Endurance expenditure, Pushing, or powers that are defined as costing extra endurance. No Post-Segment 12 Recovery of Stun and Endurance in combat unless you take an action to Recover, or while you're unconscious but not taking continuing damage. Also, soliloquies take no time or actions. If it would fit into a word balloon in a comicbook, you can say it in the middle of combat. Likewise, you get no advantage from attacking the villain while he's telling you his nefarious plan. (We all love _the Incredibles_ but you're going to want to know about the bombs that have been planted all over the city.)
Equipment needed to play
Internet
Computer
Microphone
Platforms used
Safety
How Steven (malpanda) creates a safe table
By listening to my players before, during, and after the game. By asking them if they have any severe triggers I should avoid. By checking in with them when it seems like something in the game isn't landing right, or when an unexpected story element is introduced that could be a trigger. By checking in with them at the end of the session to make sure everyone had fun and any issues are brought to light and discussed.
Content warnings
Safety tools used