My Dream Campaign
The game I'd like to gamesmaster...
So if I was going to start a roleplaying campaign, what would I do? Well my favourite RPG genre is superheroes, and my favourite sub-genre of superheroes is the Silver Age / Marvel.
But I’d be wanting to do my own setting, rather than actually use Marvel’s. So what and where? Well I’m British, so I think I’d be looking to set it in Britain, and I’m thinking if I want a ‘60s vibe, why not set it in the 1960s?
So we’ve got Swinging London, but with superpowers. As long as we play with, but not get sucked into, that Austin Powers vibe, I think we’ll be fine. But what else can we put in? Well if my PCs are some sort of group, they might need transport. And I’m figuring that if the X-Men could use an SR71 Blackbird that had somehow been converted to carry passengers and make vertical take offs and landings…
…then I think I can go with awesomely iconic (if a plane that got cancelled when only one prototype had flown can be iconic) BAC TSR2, with its bomb-bay converted to a passenger compartment.
Now they’ll need somewhere to stash the super-villains they apprehend. Or if it all goes a bit “Civil War” the government might need somewhere to stash my PCs themselves. But either way, there’s Rockall.
If you don’t know, Rockall is a small, slab-sided “island” in the middle of Atlantic, sort of midway between Ireland and Iceland.
And if you’re asking which country it belongs to, Ireland or Iceland, the answer is of course that it belongs to the United Kingdom.
But the point here is that what we see is merely the exposed peak of an undersea mountain, so pop a helipad on the top, build an elevator shaft going down, and then a giant underground complex, and hey-presto, you’ve got yourself a pretty nifty prison for supervillains.
Now obviously player characters would be up to the players, but with a purely Silver-aged approach, you can be a little more cheesy. I’m thinking things like:
A mod who flies on a flying motor scooter (accessorised with a load of chrome and a bunch of extra wing mirrors, of course). Arch nemesis could be a rocker.
“The Batsman” - yep, he hits people with a cricket bat. Might also have hi-tech cricket balls that can do various things. Could be Australian or West Indian. Note that while in this campaign he’ll wear whites, in the modern-day Cinematic Universe reboot he’ll be wearing a multi-coloured, one-day / T20 outfit.
Someone who’s either the reincarnation of Merlin / Arthur / a Knight of the Round Table etc, or who found something that belongs to it. And yes, this is an area that Marvel have extensively mined, but it’s not like they invented it. We could add a bit of proto-hippyness to this character as well.
A posh bloke with a bucketload of charm overlaying a slightly ruthless streak. Imagine Bruce Wayne without Batman, but with a moustache, a sharp suit (of both the regular and superhero variety), a good line in one-liners, woman coming out of his ears, and better things to do at night than hang around the streets, beating up low-lifes. Could have a “man” of some sort (i.e. butler), but his butler would be a more working class bloke than Alfred, and might be ex-SAS or something. (I do love the idea of a posh superhero who’s superhero sidekick is his servant).
A girl who in her day job is a Twiggy style supermodel and fashion icon, but has a crime-fighting, arse-kicking alter-ego. Her costume will, of course, incorporate go-go boots.
An iron-man style battle suit built not by the RAF, but by the Royal Navy, and flown not by an RAF pilot, but by a Fleet Air Arm pilot. Why? Because I just think the Fleet Air Arm are cooler than the RAF. (Did you know, that in the period since 1945, the Fleet Air Arm have shot down more enemy aircraft than the RAF)?
For the opposition we could go with the Cold War, completely with granite-carved Soviet super soldiers and East German master spies. Or we can stay on home territory and go with megalomaniacal and corrupt industrialists or dodgy, hippy, cult-leader types. Personally, I’m thinking less James Bond and more The Prisoner.
This is a world without cell-phones, and while it’s not a world without computers, it is a world where computers get to live in large rooms rather than your back pocket. It’s a world where a man can still get changed in a phone box without having his transformation upload to TikTok within minutes. Hell, it’s a world where there’s still phone boxes for him to get changed in. (Note: I say “man” not to exclude female superheroes, but because I figure that as with pissing in alleyways and street corners, changing in public phone boxes is something that they’ll have sufficient sense and dignity to abstain from).
So that’s my game. Now all I need is a system…
The Nexus Files is free to read. But if you subscribe you'll get new posts emailed to your inbox automatically, and I won't feel like I'm pointlessly screaming into the void.